Disclaimer:

I do not own Torchwood or these characters, though I would love to.

I do not own Doctor Who either. Some of you may get the little connection I made in the story :)

Jack new that he should stay.

He knew that, with all of his heart, he would be happiest if he stayed exactly where he was, with Gwen and Rhys and the soon to be born child. If he stayed he could help rebuild Torchwood – Four this time. He could recruit new members and create a whole new Torchwood.

But he couldn't bear it.

Jack didn't want a new Torchwood. He wanted the old one back. He wanted the dynamic of all of them – Gwen, Tosh, Owen, Himself and…. He couldn't bear to think about the last one. He wouldn't even have really minded having Suzie back.

But, sure enough, Jack ran. He ran from his problems. He ran from the death and the loss and the grief. But he also ran from his family. At least the last remaining essence of family he had – Gwen.

But she wasn't enough.

*****1 year after the end of Children of Earth: Day 5*****

Gwen woke up at 1 a.m. to the sound of her newborn son crying. Just like the past 9 months, she woke up, and walked into the nursery of her new house.

"Jack! Is it possible for you to sleep more than two hours at a time?" She picked him up carefully, and walked downstairs. She had just begun to prepare a bottle when the doorbell rang.

She sighed, exasperated, and walked to the front door. Everytime the doorbell had rung in the past year she had gotten her hopes up. She would always think, Maybe he changed his mind, or He's probably finally come to his senses. She always hoped for Jack to come back from wherever he was.

Gwen hushed the baby and shushed her hopes. Then, she opened the door.

The sight in front of her was better than anything she could have imagined. Jack hadn't come back, sadly, but what was standing there was even better.

"So, who's this little guy?" Ianto Jones asked, as if nothing had happened.

Gwen, not knowing what to say, just answered as calmly as possible "This, is Jack Williams."

Owen Harper chuckled. "You named him after the guy that you were secretly in love with for over three years? Nice." Ianto barged passed her with a large duffel bag glued to his hip. Owen followed suit, and Toshiko Sato just looked at her with a smile that could have melted anyone's heart.

"I think it's sweet that you named him after Jack. He was one of your best friends, and he was also sort of a father figure, always looking out for us." She smiled again.

"Wait. Just… STOP!" Gwen yelled as quietly as she could do so. "How on earth, well, not earth, but how in the universe are you here?"

Owen smirked, Ianto nearly smiled, and Tosh beamed. Then she said "You see, when you die, you go to this black space, it's just perpetual nothingness. It actually took me a while to figure out where I was. But I did realize where it was eventually. It's the Void. It's the space between parallel universes. Now, some people say that it's like hell, but it was actually kind of peaceful. You just think. All of the time – it's quite nice. Anyway, being the genius that I am, I found out a way to interact with people. I found Owen quickly – the stronger the connection you have to someone while alive, the easier it is to communicate. It's not like talking though, it's more like being inside each other's head. It's easier than talking, because you pretty much think as one."

"She says that now, but someone knowing your thoughts all of the time gets extremely annoying. Plus, you have to see everything that they have ever done in their life. As in, intimate details. I just don't want to know what's going on in everyone's love lives." Owen glared at Ianto.

"I couldn't help it. If it happened you can see it. It's not like I wanted you to." He sent back a retaliating glare.

"But you still haven't explained how you're here." Gwen stated.

"Right, I was getting to that before the boys interrupted me." Tosh said. "See, people travel through the void sometimes, when they move from one world to a parallel one. The thing is – there are thousands of worlds. Every time someone moves from one to another we can get a glimpse of that world, bet people very rarely go through to Void. We just had to float through the Void until we found our world. That's why it took us so long. Even if you can find the world, people don't travel through them much anyway. Once Ianto, 'crossed over' if you will, we could sense him right away, and we found this world, but it took this long for someone to cross over the other way. But, we just hitched a ride. It's like we're reborn too, not a scratch, bruise or scar on us."

"Yep," said Owen "The undead man is now actually alive, heartbeat, blood flow and all." He smirked again.

"If it was so easy for you guys to come back, then why don't more people cross back over?" Gwen asked.

"Oh, it wasn't easy." Said Ianto. "It's like you're getting pulled into a million pieces. Plus, inter-dimensional travel is catastrophic."

"But it wasn't our idea to start any catastrophe. Us tagging along with someone who was already crossing from a different world isn't any worse than that one person crossing, and they were going to do it anyway. We just used them to cross." Tosh said.

"Alright," said Gwen. "you're probably here for somewhere to stay. You can, but not for too long, alright? You can probably get your old jobs back soon. Torchwood is being rebuilt."

"Jack's here then?" Ianto asked expectantly.

"No, I'm sorry dear. He left after you died. He really loved you, and he was heartbroken. He had no reason to stay." Gwen looked down at her baby, "He's never even met little Jack." Gwen started to tear up a bit.

She cleared her throat, "So, there's one Guest room upstairs, and a couch down here. I don't know if you and Owen are okay sleeping in the same bed, Tosh, but if not you might be able to squeeze into my bed with Rhys." Gwen winked at Tosh - no one else saw.

Owen started to protest, but Tosh said something first, "We'll be fine sharing the bed, right Owen?"

"Sure. It' not like we can get any closer after spending over two years in each other's heads." Owen said. He figured he could have it much worse.

"That leaves me with the couch." Ianto said as he plopped down.

"Don't be complaining. Of the three of you guys, you had the least painless death." Gwen said. "Now, I've got to be putting Jack to bed, but Ianto, Make yourself at home. Tosh and Owen, I'll show you where the guest room is."

Gwen walked up the stairs of her house, with two of her formerly deceased friends on her heels. She showed them their room, put Jack down, and climbed in bed with Rhys.

"Rhys." She whispered. He didn't hear her. "Rhys!" She whispered louder. He still didn't hear her. Gwen sighed, "I guess he'll find out for himself in the morning."

Then she drifted into sleep, dreaming of aliens and parallel universes for the first time in months. And she was happy.

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