Lilly Harkness was the last of her family, well there was Alice but the two of them never really spoke, not after what he did.
Lilly remembered a time when she had a family, when she had friends too who had been connected to her family.
Now however all she had was her job as a Nanny and her grungy little flat, and soon her job as a nanny would be finished, the children almost grown and on to their own lives, lives that didn't need a woman who bled Artron energy to remind her of her of what she had once been.
Lilly Harkness exuded confidence; she had a far away look in her green eyes and always had a tale ready on her lips.
She would tell of her family, of Jack and Grey and evenings playing rounders on the beach near their home as the sun set and the birds began to sing for the evening.
She would tell of her adventures with the doctor, an Alien from Gallifrey,
She would tell of how his companion Rose Tyler shone like the sun when she brought Life to her brother, she would tell her charges Joe and Katy of all the gallant deeds of the Tardis crew, and how everyone was always home in time for tea and no-body ever got hurt.
She would tell them the altered version, not the truth.
The Doctor was lost to her now, He had been worth the monsters every single time and yet where was he now? Off with Amelia Pond and Rory Williams, Eleventh incarnation a big streak of skinny Timelord with a bowtie, mussed up hair, a habit of getting himself into sticky situations, and a love of fish fingers and custard.
Oh he had been worth all the monsters, each an every time, and he had promised her faithfully that he would visit, but that was the old him, this new him of the mussed hair and bowtie probably didn't remember her.
That was fine, because she had been with him, and seen him burn like a sun, and he had been soo alive, it was someone else's turn now, Amelia Pond and Rory Williams' turn now, but still would it be too much for a postcard now and then, 'Wish you were here Lilly, the Doctor x'
She had learnt that when you travel with the Doctor you change after all who can see all the things that he shows you and not change.
Her brother Jack had changed, gone from a cowardly time agent come con man to a hero.
But he was lost to her, her lovely brother, gone and gods did she miss him.
When they had all been little, before the war, and before Grey had been lost to them the three of them had often spent nights in Jacks room talking about their futures.
Lilly had wanted to go and major in Archaeology, either that or time travel with the time agency. Jack had wanted to just join the time agency, and Grey wanted to be a Knight, but then again he was only little and believed in Lilly's stories much like Joe and Katy had at his age.
After Grey had been lost to them and their father dead Lilly helped her mother at home and tried to talk Jack out of his guilt.
It had not been his fault that Grey had been lost, no mater how many times he had woken in the night sobbing to his sister that he let go of Grey's hand.
It broke her heart when he was the first in the Boeshane peninsula to sign to the time agency, he was too young in her mind, but then again she always saw him in her minds eye as a fifteen year old telling her that he would never grow up, he would always be the same Jay-jay to bring her sweets or steal cookies for her when mother wasn't looking.
The Time agency was corrupt, that much she knew but try as she might she could not dissuade him, and he joined.
Apart from the occasional vidcasts he sent home saying that he was doing well she never really saw her brother.
She watched the vidcasts over and over marvelling at how her brother had changed from ungainly long limbed teen, to a man, with muscles and a strong jaw reminiscent of their father.
When she really missed him she would horde the Vidcasts in her room and watch them all, over and over until the pain in her heart that had been created by his absence dulled a little, only then would she put the monitor back in the living room and continue with her chores, a smile on her face and whistling a tune that Jack had taught her.
Her mother died when she was seventeen after a long battle with many illnesses, depression at the loss of her sons was foremost however. There was a small funeral and Lilly had informed the time agency that Jack would need compassionate Leave to attend.
He never did.
And in those moments she hated the time agency for not letting her brother come to his own mother's funeral.
She hated them with such venom, so much so that two years later she set about trying to bring them down. Well if Clive could search about the doctor in a garden shed then she could do soo much more in her family home.
It all came to nothing unfortunately and she spent five years on a prison barge near the mining belt for her trouble.
It was worth it though. She collected information from the other prisoners, many of them knew the name of Harkness, and many of them had been swindled by her brother Jack, they told her that he was hiding on 21st century Earth.
When she had finally served her time they let her home.
She was overjoyed to be home again, but when she realised that most of her hometown was now uninhabitable due to the raids that had been going on for almost as long as she had been alive, she made it a quick visit.
She snared a time agent, his name had been Dempsey and she had killed him, taken his vortex manipulator and headed for Earth.
That was when she met the Doctor… there were Autons all over the place and stunning Rose Tyler wittering on about the Doctor blowing up her job.
She had used them to start with. She needed to find her brother and possibly beat nine bells out of him when she found him, and the Doctor needed someone human to keep Rose happy while he fixed his magnificent ship.
And boy was that ship something!
Lilly was part Teliconisi, she, like the doctor could hear the ship, could talk to it, and the tales that old Tardis told were quite frankly mind blowing.
So they had both used each other to start with.
But over time that had changed, they found her brother quite by accident really; in the middle of the London blitz Second World War.
She had been with the doctor when Rose had done her disappearing act and met Jack for the first time.
Questions were best saved for when they didn't have a German bomb about to fall on them however.
When she realised what he was going to do, how he was gong to transport the bomb to his ship she was livid.
She knew the Chula ship he currently owned didn't have an escape pod; he was willing to… save them all no matter the cost to his own life.
"Don't do it Jack, please"
"Lilly I have to," he had replied with that boyish grin of his "And if it's any consolation at least I know before I… At least I know that your safe and you grew up well, at least I saw you one last time."
"Jack!" Rose had spat
"Do what you have to Jack, its Volcano day" Lilly had replied with a small smile, hugging her brother to her briefly before he transported aboard his ship.
She never thought she would see him again but her wonderful brother just kept evading death.
That evening as soon as they got back to the Tardis the doctor and Rose had begun to dance around the control room.
Lilly didn't think there was anything much to celebrate so she retreated to her room, never letting her tears fall until her bedroom door was closed and locked.
She must have exhausted herself because she awoke without knowing that she had been asleep. Sitting next to her bed in her desk chair was a shadowy figure.
She thought it was the Doctor keeping an eye on her, making sure that she was alright.
"Look can you not please Doctor, you said everybody lives, just this once everybody lives that's what you said, does that not extend to my brother, I mean I know he almost brought about the end of the world but he's a good person really."
The person in the chair stood up and came to sit next to Lilly on the bed.
"Well isn't it good that 'everybody lives' means me too flower hmm?" an American accent replied.
Oh she couldn't breath, she struck him hard enough to leave a bruise and continued to do so until she ran out of power and sobbed instead
He said nothing just wrapped her tight in his embrace and let her cry, and if his eyes were damp too he blamed it on dust from his ship exploding getting into his eyes.
When Jack left the doctor and Lilly again he did so with promises to return one day, the siblings had a new relationship now that can only come when you meet a sibling again after many years apart.
They were as close as siblings can be, sometimes sitting up late in the kitchen with cookies and hot chocolate and laughing over stories of their childhood, before retiring to the library and eventually falling asleep on the comfy sofas therein, to be roused by either the Doctor or whichever companion was current.
So when Jack left the Tardis gang Lilly was a little upset understandably, but at least this time she knew where he was going to be, stationed at the rift with his team of Torchwood.
So for a while she stayed with the Doctor, because she had always wanted to see the universe.
After a while however she realised that she was feeling things that she should not feel for the doctor. He was her friend and yet sometimes when she would look at him she would see something in his eyes that she couldn't place, something that tugged at her heart.
It was a wrench to leave, but she said she wanted to see Jack for a while and he had let her.
They had been travelling with Donna Noble as their companion and so Lilly felt that he had healed enough after what happened to Rose to leave him.
Donna Noble had been funny and had made Lilly and the doctor laugh.
She had seen the universe with the eyes of one who had never seen its beauty and Lilly admired her all the more for it, she was soo human, and Lilly decided that the doctor would be safe with Donna; Donna would tell him when to stop, when enough was enough.
When she arrived at Torchwood, she was confronted with a man holding a gun, the mans name she learned later was Owen Harper, Torchwoods medical officer. He had put her in a holding cell next to a weevil until Jack got back from wherever he was.
Owen had apologised profusely when Jack told him who this strange raven haired woman was and they soon became the best of friends.
Time passes as it is want to do, and sweet Owen is no more, yet another casualty of a life led walking the stars.
When the 456 invaded Lilly got to meet her Niece Alice and her Great Nephew Stephen. She had revelled in having a family again and began to make plans, for Disneyland and summers by the coast, playing rounders and teaching Stephen about all the things that could be found in the rock pools.
She had cursed herself for making plans.
When Jack had told her what must be done she had raged at him, he could not take her nephew away from her not when she had just met him.
"Would you rather a tenth of each countries children be taken then Lills?" he had asked her.
How could he ask her such a thing, why did it always come down to this, the loss of a loved one, hadn't the Harkness' lost enough in their long lives? Why did the universe want to punish them even more, hadn't they served their due? Couldn't they live in peace now?
"Of course not Jack, but I just got to meet him, I was going to teach him soo much, rounders on the beach like we used to play, and Disneyland, and oh so much more… don't Jack, please, there has to be another way"
But she knew there wasn't, she was holding on to a fools hope. But what else could she do? If he did this it would tear their new found family apart again, for a second time.
"There isn't" he had replied and his eyes held a tortured look.
She nodded and brought Stephen to her hugging him close and telling him who she was.
"I'm your aunty Lilly Stephen"
"Are you married to Uncle Jack then?"
"No Cherub, he's my brother and he's your grandfather."
"But he doesn't look old enough"
"Times a big ball of wibbily wobbly timey whimy stuff and well your granddad is immortal, he sort of can't die and ages slower than most humans"
"Am I immortal to aunty Lilly?"
"Oh yes Cherub," she had replied tears streaming down her face
"Yes your immortal my darling and I love you for it"
"You do?"
"Yes"
"How am I going to explain to Mark at school why I don't look any different in years and year's time?"
"Oh I'm sure you won't need to"
"Why is mummy angry with granddad then?"
"Because he needs you to do something for him that Mummy doesn't approve of"
"Will it make the monsters go away?"
"Yes. Yes it will"
"I want to do it then if it will make the monsters go away"
Lilly looked to the sky willing the doctor to be here to scare the 'monsters' away, but he would not come, she knew that, she brushed the tears away and listened to her niece arguing with Jack, yelling at him saying that he couldn't do this.
"Ok Stephen I'll go let Jack know ok?"
The boy nodded and Lilly told her brother that Stephen was willing to do whatever it took to make the 'monsters' go away
He looked at her with such a hunted expression that she had to look away.
Lilly caught hold of Alice, held her in a vice like grip to stop her going to Stephen, the woman hit her and clawed at her and screamed for her son, screamed at Lilly to let her go to her son, to save him.
She couldn't, and how it hurt to know that to save the human race she had to sacrifice her family.
When it was over Alice was still screaming, her voice horse and broken but she was still screaming for her son, hurling abuse at Jack, and He didn't look at her.
He just turned away from them and walked out of the facility.
It was Lilly, who dealt with Alice, listening to the woman hurl abuse at her, and she took it, she stood there and took it, tears streaming down her face sobs hitching in her throat, but she took all of her niece's insults, and she never once said anything back.
After a while the two women went to Stephen and they took it in turns to cradle him, Alice telling Lilly of his life and Lilly telling Alice over and over how brave he was.
It wasn't enough however to repair the bond between them.
"I think you should go now" Alice had said in a thick voice
"But you're my Niece, I should be here for you" Lilly had pleaded.
Alice shook her head "I think you've done enough"
"Alice Please, I… What do you want me to say, My brother's just walked off, I have nowhere else to go, no-one I know. Don't shut me out of your life"
"I have to Lilly, this is what happens to us, you know that, this is what happens when you wander the stars with Dad, He cracks jokes and He flirts with a myriad of people, and he puts you at your ease and you get drawn in, but in the end one way or another, it all ends up like this. I can't keep this up, there are only so many times you can rebuild a life…"
"We can rebuild together, you and me"
"You look old enough to be my sister"
"Then that's what we'll say I am. Your sister Lilly Harkness"
"I took my late husbands name Carter"
"Ok Lilly Carter then"
Alice shook her head and Lilly knew she would have to move on again.
She was soo tired of moving on, of going to different places, but once you travelled with the doctor and got burnt by Jack Harkness you could never be normal.
"Goodbye Alice, I'm so sorry" Lilly said. She bent pressing a kiss to Stephens's cold forehead and stood pressing another kiss to Alice's before walking out of the facility the same way Jack had.
She wasn't expecting to see him waiting for her, those days had long since passed when he would wait at the Tardis take her hand in his and they would be off for another adventure and home in time for tea.
He had taken a different path to her; he had abandoned her and the earth.
She knew that she would not see him again.
Five months and three weeks later she had a call from Gwen Cooper, Gwen had been part of the Torchwood team back in the day, she said that Jack was coming to Earth briefly, and that Lilly should be there.
She didn't want to be. But she owed it to Gwen.
Six months after Stephen's death they were on a hill waiting for Jack.
As they stood and waited for him they talked of mundane things.
"What do you do now?"
"I'm a live in nanny to two kids, their parents go away a lot so I fill in" Lilly replied.
"That's… good."
"I'm trying to start again, you know, something new, a new me if you like."
"Baby's due soon"
Lilly looked at Gwen's baby bump and smiled "A new start for all of us then?"
"Apart from Jack,"
"Jack does nothing but run Gwen, he always has"
"Yeah, he runs to stop the people he loves getting hurt"
"No he runs to save himself; he didn't even stay to help Alice. Didn't even say sorry"
"Would it have helped any, would it have changed her mind?"
"That's not the point!"
"He's here!" Rhys said.
Jack strode to the bottom of the hill, looking just the way he had when Lilly had last seen him.
Rhys and Gwen both bounded up to him, Gwen affecting a waddle instead of a bound, but they exchanged greetings, Rhys mumbling about how cold it was, and all Lilly could do was stare.
"…Are you ever coming back Jack?"
"What for?"
Didn't he know what Gwen meant didn't he see that there was a reason to come back standing just a few yards away. Lilly walked to Rhys and he linked his arm with hers.
"It wasn't your fault" Gwen said with tears in her eyes
"I think it was Stephen and Ianto, Owen and Tosh and Suzie and… All of them, because of me"
"But… uhh you saved us, didn't you"
"I began to like it, and look what I became… still, I have lived soo may lives, its time to find another one"
He looked over at her and for all her grief of the last few months she couldn't cry. She walked calmly over to her brother, who had his hand on his vortex manipulator and put her hand over his.
"Don't… Don't go yet"
"How are you?"
"Good"
"Are you really?"
"Got myself a new job, looking after two awesome Kids, Joe and Katy, I tell them our stories."
He smiled at her and she could see his tears, as yet unshed, threatening to spill over and wet his cheeks.
"Will you tell them this one?"
"I'll tell them of a dashing time agent and how he saved the world, and yet was still home in time for tea"
"I like that story little sister"
"Me too, because in the story he lives a blameless life with his sister and his daughter and his grandson, and there are no monsters hiding in dark corners or under beds, a nice, happy life."
He shook her hand free and pushed his cursor finger down on one of the buttons.
"Jack, Please, ok they died and Alice hates you, but we can start again me and you"
"Come with me then, we can start again together. Earth is a graveyard now Lilly, its soo small and everywhere I go there are soo many ghosts. I can't stay"
"And I can't leave, I have responsibilities, you can't just run away Jack"
"Just watch me"
He pushed his cursor finger down on the button and he was gone.
Gwen cried in the arms of her husband but Lilly, she just walked back to her car and began the long drive back to her home.
She got onto the motorway for home, Taunton, and as she drove she took quick glances out of her window to where she could see the hill, Jacks hill, she continued to drive until it was out of sight and then pulled over in a Little Chef.
She ordered a coffee, and when it arrived lukewarm and horrible until she'd put three sugars into it, a wave of grief hit her, Ianto had always made good coffee and always been there with a shoulder to cry on and a sympathetic ear every time she and Jack had argued, or when she had to cancel a date due to work.
How would she cope now?
She looked into the coffee as if it would somehow bring them all back Jack, Ianto Tosh, Owen, Suzie, and slowly like a dam fracturing cracking and breaking the tears began, and they turned into silent sobs, wracking her body while she clutched on to her mug for dear life, they were all gone now, nothing was going to bring them back.
She touched her vortex manipulator and suddenly it was all so easy. She could just vanish, crash her car and vanish.
Her phone rang and she fumbled in her pocket to retrieve it.
It was Katy and Joe's parents, asking her if she could work tomorrow for the next week or two.
She said yes, and all thoughts of vanishing, of just going somewhere other than here were gone.
After all Jack had saved the children, all of them, she would never forget the sacrifice they had made, and looking after Joe and Katy would make her remember.
She stared once more at her lukewarm coffee, and downed the last of it, before heading out to the car and beginning to drive back home.
Time passes as it is want to do on earth, and each year that passes on the anniversary of Stephen's death, she goes back to the hill, Jack's hill.
Sometimes she takes the children, and sometimes she goes alone.
She knows without a doubt that Torchwood three is gone forever, she knows that any hope of a family is out the window too, but sometimes, when Katy and Joe help her with dinner in the evenings, they turn on the CD player and dance around the room, and sometimes if the mood and the song are right for Lilly its almost like having family, almost like being back on the Boeshane Peninsula with her two brothers, but Lilly knows that 'Almost' is never really good enough anymore.
Three years to the day of Stephen's death and Katy and Joe went to see a film with friends.
When they came back they had some interesting news for Lilly.
"There was a man in town asking for you" Katy said hanging her coat up behind the front door and settling down in front of the TV
"Really? What did he look like?"
"He had a greatcoat, US air force greatcoat too by the look of it, brand new but it couldn't have been, after all it was commonplace in world war two" Jo stated, he was a history buff and his favourite time period was indeed world war two.
"What were his words?" she asked them
"he asked us if we were Katy and Joe and we said we were, he asked us if We knew Lilly Harkness, and we said we did, he said his name Was Jack Harkness, said he was your brother, but that cant be right can it Lilly?" Katy said
"You don't have family do you?" Joe asked
"No cherub, I don't, there's just me, but you two are like my family now"
They grinned up at her; happy that her answer had made sense, and then they both decided to watch a film with Lilly after all she looked like she needed cheering up.
Over the past three years they had never questioned their annual trips to 'the Hill' Lilly had always looked sad so they tried their best on those days to be good and do their best to cheer her up.
When they all piled into Lilly's car at the end of the day homeward bound Lilly would put the radio on and they would sing and laugh to their hearts content, they would stop at a 'little chef' and Lilly would buy them dinner, eating nothing herself, but sipping strong black coffee reverently.
They always ended the day with a film, and so on this particular day the two children snuggled up to Lilly as they did every year on this day and watched a movie.
That evening when they went to bed they demanded a story Lilly told them the one about the Monsters who came for the children, and of a dashing time agent who saved the worlds children and was back in time for tea, with his family.
Katy and Joe had heard this story soo often that they could now recite it to children at school if they so wished, but they did not, Lilly's stories were something sacred, like she was imparting a little of herself, some puzzle in all the stories she told, but as yet they couldn't fit the pieces together to form the whole picture, there was always something missing.
So they listened to the story and for the millionth time marvelled at how Lilly wove the story so well, at how it seemed so real, like the characters that Lilly made up were real people. But that was silly, they were just an imagining in Lilly's mind, breathed to life through Lilly's lips and given a home in her heart, where the gallant time agent and his sister were always home in time for tea.
When the children succumbed to slumber, Lilly's calming voice ringing softly in their ears she sighed, and pulled the quilt over them, kissing them both on the forehead before going back downstairs.
It was then she took from her pocket a crumpled picture of two young boys, grinning up at the camera, in dirty play clothes, the elder a rounders bat clasped in his fingers, the younger a rounders ball, cheeks flushed from playing a game of rounders where no-one was really the winner.
It was then she let the tears drip down her cheeks unchecked, she watched the photo as her now moist eyes made the images distort until they were almost moving, lifelike, it was then she let herself mourn.
Two weeks after 'Stephen's anniversary' Lilly found herself at Katy and Joe's waiting for them to come home from school, when she saw a familiar figure walking up the road, stopping at houses to peer through windows before walking on to the next house.
His greatcoat billowed out behind him in the autumn breeze.
Two children ran up to him and he took their hands and nodded while they prattled excitedly as only children can.
They led him to the front door of their home.
They opened the door for him and helped him as he took his boots off, all the while telling him that Lilly didn't like muddy boots trailed through the house.
She stood in the living room feet planted in the carpet, toes digging into the rug, holding on for dear life, smothering her urge to run to 'him'
He watched the children as they ran about doing their after school routine, bags in the kitchen so Lilly could check on what homework they had, glasses out of a cupboard and milk out of the fridge, milk poured out of its carton and biscuits out of the tin.
"She's in the living room Jack" Katy said.
"Thanks" came the voice Lilly knew all too well
She heard his sock clad feet moving towards the living room and try as she might she couldn't look at him, couldn't watch him walking up to her, her heart beat fast in her chest, and her hands trembled to hold him, hug him to her before reprimanding him for leaving her here alone.
He caught her as she stumbled toward him "Hey now Lill's let's get you sat down before you fall down."
His voice sounded choked like all the emotion in his body had suddenly gone to his voice box and it was making it hard to speak. He hauled her to the sofa and set her down before going to the kitchen for a glass of water.
"Here drink this you look like your going to vomit over me, not a good look"
"Damn you Jack Harkness" her voice sounded scratchy to her ears
"You were right they are awesome kids, very helpful too"
"Don't you dare be flippant with me Jack, what do you mean by coming back here?"
"I wanted to see you Lills"
"Oh you did, well you've seen me now Jack you can go"
"Do you have contact with Alice?"
"No another thing you ruined for me, you tore my family apart Jack and then you just left like… Like it didn't even matter." She took a breath to keep the tears in check; she would not cry in front of him, he wasn't worth it.
"I couldn't stay; you know that, I told you"
"Why are you back now?"
"I… I needed to see you"
"Why?"
"You're my sister; can't I want to see you for no reason at all?"
"I have a brother do I? I didn't realise, my brother died, a long time ago, you're just someone wearing his face."
"Lilly... What happened with the 456 was a lamentable tragedy…"
"No Jack stop right there you do not have the right to sound like that horrible politician, not in this house, it was not a lamentable tragedy, neither was it an unavoidable loss, it was Jack Harkness, once again deciding what was right, no matter the cost, did you even see him as your grandson or just a tool, like a monkey wench or a soldering iron, something that was necessary to fix everything?"
"You go too far!" Jack spat
"No I haven't even begun Jack"
"Don't you think I have guilt tripped myself enough, It was me who brought the first children to the 456, I started their addiction, and I have hated myself about the choices I have made soo many times, but I can't change anything, sometimes you live too long, you see too much."
Lilly looked at him really looked and saw someone different to her brother, it still looked like him, but he was broken, a shell of her Jack who had bounded among the stars holding tight to her hand.
"I never understood the doctor, why he tried to solve things with as little violence as possible, why he always gave them a choice… I know why now"
"Jack?"
"He knew that he still had life to live, and possibly lots of it, he knew it would haunt him, so he tried to distance himself, he tried to save himself and others the pain, but what happens when there is no way to distance yourself, no way to run, no way to hide and leave it to someone else. This is what happens Lilly, your looking at what happens when you have to make a choice, and it eats you up inside, turns you into something you don't want to be."
"Jack," she wanted to hug him and make it all better but she knew she couldn't. "You are my brother you will always be my brother, but right now I have to think of the children, you can't be here, because you always mess things up, things go wrong, and I can't deal with that again, what if this time its them that die, how can I explain to their parents how can I do that again, watch innocents die, it was bad enough…" she couldn't go on.
"Stephen" Jack said.
Lilly nodded.
"Lilly please let him stay, he looks lonely, sad," Katy said.
"Let him stay?"
"Yes just till we go to school" Joe asked.
"Fine, Just till you two go to school, he can walk you tomorrow and then he'll be gone."
The children nodded and Jack smiled and winked at the children.
He engaged himself in their routine, watching as Lilly helped with homework, and imparted funny stories and help when Lilly was stumped.
It was how things should have been, how they would have been if the 'monsters' hadn't arrived and messed things up.
But Lilly had learnt from an early age that Monsters always came, weather you called for them or not.
So for now she let herself be cocooned in the warmth that a family can bring, she let herself be drawn in once again to the closest thing she would have to a family night, and she embraced it arms wide open, trying to desperately burn these memories into her mind for times when it would all be ripped away.
Because when you travel with the doctor you live a wonderful life among the stars, you meet some amazing people, but what no-one tells you, what no-one thinks of is when it ends, when you take the slow path once again, you think it's the end, but for those who travel with the Doctor, or Jack Harkness it is never the end, You have been marked by your time with them, and when you take the slow path, when you go home, the 'monsters' are always a few paces behind, hiding, waiting for the right moment to rip your world apart.
But when you travel with gods, you expect a few demons along the way.