"You have no idea what it felt like, coming back to life and knowing the world was empty...because you'd gone!"
Jack Harkness
Torchwood: The Lost Files House of the Dead (13 July 2011)
Author's Notes: The actual Torchwood series is filled with mysterious alien artifacts and insane plots. My stories have similarities. Some questions will be answered. Others will leave readers wondering. Welcome to my AU. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Torchwood Global Orbital Space Station, June 2035, alternative time line
Below the view-port, Earth burned, covered in swirling shades of gray and sickly green. Humans destroyed their planet, civilization and race through arrogance and greed. She failed to save them from themselves. The wasteland was her legacy. An alien station was humanity's last safe port.
Twenty-five year-old Anwen Williams leaned into Keara's embrace. Memories of failures tortured her. Securing the station had be the hardest in a series of nightmarish tasks. A hundred people volunteered to wage war against the aliens on their turf. Twenty-eight claimed victory, including her and Keara.
After the world changed, so did she. Anwen slid her hands over Keara's. She resisted the relationship with varied excuses: their age difference, her role as leader and the oddity of finding herself attracted to another woman. None of it felt important anymore.
Footsteps sounded beyond the open doorway. "Uncle Jack is awake." He was the only constant she'd ever known.
Keara shifted, releasing her; Anwen held on.
"Jack won't care," Anwen whispered. If some of the stories she'd heard about him over the years were remotely true, his niece having a girlfriend wouldn't raise an eyebrow. Not even a thirty-three year-old one.
"We found a WWII era supply depot. It should keep you retro." Anwen figured clothing for her uncle was the only thing of value it contained.
Captain Jack Harkness strode across the room wearing a WWII era clothes. If he had an opinion on their embrace, he kept it to himself. "How many left?" Regeneration seemingly had little effect on him.
"About five thousand. We started grabbing children mostly as soon as we knew. We have three or four kids per adult. Dr. Sarkisian found anthropology information salvaged from one of the universities. We need ten thousand to start over." Anwen exhaled. "He's looking for options."
"What happened?"
"One government detonated another government's biomech lab. The destroyed facility was trying to redirect the Rift and ignited the atmosphere. The bloody fools kept fighting. They ran out of military targets and started hitting bomb shelters. Most of the people we saved were in obscure locations." Anwen sighed. "Keara saw it coming. I spent days ordering raids on orphanages in third world countries. Most were Catholic. So we have uniformed children and nuns." With minimal education and extensive psychological needs. "I let the prisons burn." Which weighed on her.
Anwen rubbed her hands over Keara's arms. "I don't know how to do this. Earth is a wasteland. Sarkisian is trying to figure out if we can fix Earth. We're scavenging corpses for DNA profiles in case there is any chance of synthetic DNA. It's a theoretical option." A beat. "The teams I sent for you and Rex thought I'd lost my mind." Vampire rumors had started.
"Where is Rex?"
"In secured quarters. I refuse to have an immortal spy with an attitude problem roaming free." And his continual escape attempts were helping troubleshoot security problems.
"Rex proved himself during the Miracle Day situation."
"My mum, she could do this. She ordered Rex to commit suicide and shot you to save the world. I couldn't do it. I don't know how I'm doing this."
"Do you want me to take over?"
"No. I said I'd lead. I have to..."
Keara kissed the top of her head. The physical contact was reassuring. Having grown up tethered to Torchwood, she'd had few opportunities to connect. Few friends and fewer lovers.
"What can I do?"
"Logistics. Sarkisian will figure something out. We need plans." At least Rex made her smile. He was a conceited arse. Just picturing him trying to puzzle his way out of a cell he had no chance of escaping gave her that. "Give Rex a few more days to test our security. He can help."
"We could use a psychic."
"Keara is the only adult we have left. Miriam did a kamikaze during the station raid."
"She's a tactician. That works."
"No." Anwen couldn't help but smile at the absurdity of the situation. "I'm not leaving you alone with my girlfriend."
Keara laughed. Then whispered in her ear. "He doesn't have a chance."
An odd happiness settled over Keara Montfert in the months that followed. Her and Anwen grew closer. For the first time in her life, she had hope. They didn't have much more than the basics. They shared a room more for lack of space on the station than commitment, but it felt real.
A part of her knew it wouldn't last. Her psychic ability gave her an increasingly uneasy feeling but provided no details. Not until the unthinkable destroyed the only real happiness she'd ever had. Jack said Anwen's death was an accident in an attempt to ease the pain. But Keara knew a coup went horribly wrong resulting in Anwen's death. A group of American survivors believed Rex should be in command of the station. They knew of his near-immortality, and heroics during Miracle Day and after, but not Jack's.
Tears streamed down her face as she gripped a stuff horse. Her only comfort was the mutineers died. Captain Jack Harkness showed a side of himself few knew existed. Retribution was swift and brutal. No one who knew what happened would ever risk his wrath again.
The door slid open and Luc Sarkisian stepped inside. Like Anwen, he grew up with Torchwood. He was a physics prodigy whose unusual childhood led to an incredible understanding of science and technology, both human and alien. He'd taken control of the space station when others said it wasn't possible. The only hope dwindling humanity had.
"I am sorry to intrude." The door slid shut behind him. "Ms. Williams had me researching possibilities. I found one."
Soft spoken, and ridiculously polite, most people underestimated Sarkisian. She'd seen first hand, and with her psychic ability, his combat skills. He could wade through bodies, wipe off the blood, and keep doing what had to be done. One day, he would be Jack's most trusted adviser. She'd seen it. The location was uncertain, but solid.
Keara swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood, still gripping the tattered Palomino that had been a present from Anwen's mother at some point.
"Are you familiar with temporal mechanics?"
"Time?"
Sarkisian smiled. "It's possible to move through time. Somewhat like a boat on the ocean."
"Jack is a former Time Agent from the future." Keara felt stupid, having no idea where the conversation was going.
"A device was discovered by the Nigeria Torchwood office before Great Britain turned control of the country over to its people. It's powered by Rift energy and can navigate time."
"What would that accomplish?" She suddenly understood what her ability had been trying to tell her. The strongest vision involved Sarkisian. Except it wasn't the man standing in front of her.
"As Captain Harkness has said repeatedly, the future is ever changing. His arrival in our past altered events. The time line he came from is different from this one. The aliens changed it." A beat. "If they could change it…"
"We could change it back."
"Someone with your psychic ability would have the best chance of success."
"But?"
"Captain Harkness has genetic differences. Its possible, probable, those differences allow him to handle time travel."
"It could kill me?"
"Yes." Sarkisian hesitated. "We have no way of knowing what the physical and mental consequences would be."
"Are the odds better than a hundred volunteers taking an alien space station?"
"I don't know."
It wasn't as if there was another option. She was the last adult psychic and the only powerful pre-cog. It didn't matter what the odds were to change the past or survive the process. Humanity was on the brink of extinction. Then it hit. If she succeeded, she could save Anwen. Gripping a ridiculous stuffed horse, Keara quietly pledged to save the world.