At first, Alice can't see anything past her own fear, her own anger, her own grief. But a year or so later, when she's had time to calm down and rationalize, she looks back on those moments. She sees the vivid images in her mind and she sees her father. She sees his eyes, dead with trauma and sadness and a deep, aching grief that had nothing to do with her son. She sees a pain that went further than anything she thinks she's ever experienced and she wonders what happened in the days before her son was sacrificed.
She knew he'd experienced a great many losses; she'd seen them in the darkness of his eyes, in the lines of his face when he frowned, in his fights with her mum and the nights she looked out her bedroom window and saw him standing hunched over in the front yard, alternating between holding his head in his hands and staring up into the sky as if he was waiting for something.
Strangely, she and Johnson had kept in touch after the crazy event with the children, with her father and Torchwood, with the 456. It was Johnson who had approached her in the hallway, tear tracks still staining her face, and handed her a card. It had her name and number on it written in an elegant hand that Alice wouldn't have expected from such a hard, stoic woman. Alice had nodded, tried to smile, and let Johnson pat her shoulder awkwardly. It was sort of nice to know that something had affected someone besides her. At the time, she hadn't been able to say the same about Jack. She'd hated him.
Johnson's first name was Angela. The first time Alice had called her was a month after Steven's death. Johnson had come over and they'd talked about Jack and UNIT and Torchwood and the government, studiously ignoring the subject of Steven. It took another three visits before Alice was able to talk about Steven to Angela. The woman took it well, doing her best to comfort Alice. After that, they'd seen each other often, becoming friends. It was something Alice would never have dreamt of happening.
Now she phones Johnson and asks if they've still got all the footage from the 456 incident. Johnson says yes, though her voice is tentative over the phone, and asks her why.
"Because I want to understand my father." She answers. She knows it's cryptic, but she's not really sure how to put her own intentions into words, not quite yet.
Johnson tells her to come down this weekend and she'd show her. Alice thanks her and they part with a fond goodbye. The weekend can't come fast enough, and Alice finds herself thinking back to Jack's face and voice and body language in those hours she'd last seen him. She'd not thought to ask what had happened before those moments. She waits in anticipation for Saturday, hoping to see some clue into her father's mind, some reason for his dismissal of Steven's life, some sort of catalyst to the apparent heartlessness she had no idea he possessed.
On the day, she finds herself to be strangely nervous. Although she's sure some of that tightness in her gut is the remaining anger sizzling strongly. Johnson's there to meet her outside the building and they hug lightly and kiss each other's cheeks. She's not sure when their friendship had deepened into something so comfortable, so trustworthy, but it's been this way for a while and it doesn't bother her, so she doesn't really question it.
"Come on, Alice." Angela puts an arm round her shoulders and steers her through the doors. At the front desk, a visitor's badge is handed to her and she pins it to her person, smiling indulgingly at the young receptionist. She's sure the girl will be dead inside in a year. Probably less.
She follows Angela to her office, a large, tidy room on the fourth floor with a window facing the Thames. She's gone up in the ranks in the last year; now she has her own squad of employees to look after and quite a lot of authority. And she's learned not to abuse it, not after the debacle with the PM and all of that nasty stuff. Alice looks around approvingly. Angela picks up a laptop and they settle together on the surprisingly comfortable leather couch in the far corner of the room. The agent presses a couple of keys and a series of files come up, titled with numbers.
"These are the video footage we have of the room in which the 456 ambassador was held." She gestures towards a cluster files. "And these are CCTV footage we have of Torchwood in general areas during the 456 incident. Before and after the destruction of their base."
Alice nods. "Let's go linearly. Start with the earliest video and go forward. I want to get the whole story. Will you- will you fill in the blanks you know of for me?" Angela nods and presses play.
Alice watches her father talking to some doctor in a hospital, rubbing the shoulder of a young man she'd never seen before, trying to look sad and doing a bad job of it. But he looks genuinely in love with the young man, and Alice knows he really is. It's not something he can fake, she remembers that from his rows with her mother. The gentleness in his touch and the look in his eyes tell her how he feels for the man standing beside him. Then there is footage of Jack going to the hub, leaving, coming back, leaving again, driving east.
"He came over to my house, visited me. Wanted to look after Steven for a little while. I told him no." Angela nods.
Then there is more footage of him driving back, going into the hub, leaving again. Footage of him running into the hospital. Angela stops the recording.
"Rupesh Patanjali, the doctor you saw earlier, killed him under government orders. We-I placed a bomb in his stomach, also under government orders. We thought his immortality was based from their headquarters and we wanted him gone because he'd dealt with them before."
Alice nods slowly, her facial expression showing grim understanding. They'd all just been doing their jobs. She knows that now. Angela presses play again. There is footage of Jack walking back into the Hub. Silence, no movement for ten minutes or so. Then the young woman- Gwen, Alice had learned her name was back then, just after it all ended- is sprinting out of the side door and tearing across the Plass. Moments later, the young man whose name she doesn't know appears on the Plass, reaching downward, looking helpless, before shaking himself and beginning to run as well. Then the entire Plass shakes and the picture bursts into static before going black.
"The bomb exploded," Angela explains. "The two other Torchwood employees escaped. The woman was nearly captured, but she subdued two of our men and escaped. The man was shot at by one of our snipers but he managed to elude us as well. The blast killed Harkness and obliterated the base. The next day we went through the rubble and collected the remains. We took them to a secret base in London. I'm…I'm not sure if you want to see this footage."
"Play it. I want to see everything."
Angela nods curtly and clicks on the next file. A grainy black and white picture pops up, showing a body bag in a tiny room. There is the sound of clanking dimly from outside the room, but nothing is happening, though the numbers in the corner are speeding by. Then, movement. A few moments later, Angela and a soldier appear in the room. The soldier unzips the body bag and Alice has to stop herself from recoiling. A full body is in the bag, but it's only muscles, sinew, veins and bone. It's a shock to her system, and doubles as a reminder that her father is, in fact, human. The soldier and Johnson speak, though what was said has not been recorded, then Johnson leaves. The soldier does the unpleasant duty of taking Jack's body out of the bag and chaining him to the wall. Then he leaves as well.
The only movement for a while is the slow, barely visible growth of ligaments and muscle and blood and meat and flesh on the body. The sound of flesh growing is hushed and wet, but Alice can just hear it through the tinny laptop speakers. The skin is still growing in layers when the heart starts beating again, and she can see it working through the thin membrane. Blood is circulating as veins continue to form. Then the layers of skin finally form thick enough and the lungs begin working and then there's a slight movement, a twitch, a jerk, and the featureless body opens it mouth and begins to scream. It screams in agony and writhes in its chains as flesh continues to form, jerking about on the table. It screams itself hoarse and continues on screaming. Finally, finally, when the features have formed and she can tell it's Jack, he stops. His entire body goes limp for a moment, then he tenses as again and tugs on the chains. He looks up and speaks to the ceiling. It's Angela's voice. Their conversation is brief. Suddenly Jack's eyes go wide and he struggles. Wet mud-looking cement pours down over him and he splutters, coughs, twists around to try to get away from it. The entire room fills with cement. The camera goes dark.
Another file. Another camera. The hallway outside. Gwen is there, and some other man, dressed in mortician's attire. They speak to a soldier, then the camera dies. Another file. Another small room. Another body. The camera goes dead.
"They were trying to get to Harkness. They didn't know where he was. The other man broke him out with a forklift and they all escaped. Wasn't my finest hour."
She clicks a couple of files and plays them in succession. There are short clips of Jack, Gwen, the man who'd been dressed as a mortician and the unnamed young man, all stealing credit cards, briefcases and even a car.
"They were staying in an abandoned warehouse that used to be a storage base for Torchwood London. We didn't know that, so we've got no surveillance on it. After this happened, we learned about you, and tracked your call when you tried to contact Harkness."
"I know the rest."
"I know."
Angela pauses. "You know what occurred on Floor 13 of the Thames House, right?"
"I read the annotations, yes. I know what happened up until the children started saying numbers."
"Good. After that, Torchwood decided to take matters into their own hands. Harkness had dealt with them before, and he thought he could do it again, more successfully this time."
"He dealt with them before?"
"Yes. The government forced him to. He gave twelve children, twelve Scottish orphans, to the 456 in 1965. That was all they asked for. They threatened to release an incurable virus across the globe if their demands were not met. Jack was chosen to take the children to the designated meeting spot."
"Okay." Alice can accept this. She knows her father had been used for most of Torchwood's dirtier deeds. He'd been their dogsbody for a long time.
"Anyway. Torchwood took it into their own hands. Using Lois Habiba, Frobisher's personal assistant, as their middleman, they forced the government into letting them deal with the 456. I have not yet seen this surveillance recording, so it's new to both of us."
Alice nods. Angela clicks on another file and presses play.
Jack and the young man are marching through the doors of Thames House, placing their guns on the table. They stride together into the elevator, all business. The video in the elevator shows Jack's determined, stoic face. The young man looks slightly nervous, but just as determined as Jack. They meet Dekker in the hall.
Angela switches files. This one has sound. Jack and the young man are standing in front a glass tank of some sort, the inside of it shrouded in blue fog. Alice knows the 456 ambassador is in there. Jack and his companion stand side by side. Her father cuts an intimidating figure, powerful and authoritative.
"I'm Captain Jack Harkness," he announces. "I've dealt with you lot before. I'm here to explain why this time you're not getting what you want."
"You yielded in the past." Says a deep, monotonous voice. The translator of the 456. Alice shivers as she sees something moving inside the tank.
"And don't I know it. I was there. In 1965, I was part of that trade. That's why I'm never gonna let it happen again." Her father's eyes are blazing, righteous and angry.
"Explain."
"There's a saying here on Earth. A very old and very wise friend of mine taught me it. 'An injury to one is an injury to all.' And when people act according to that philosophy, the human race is the finest species in the universe." Jack's voice is hard, like he's grinding rocks with his teeth.
"Nevermind the philosophy," says her father's companion. "What he's saying is, you're not getting one solitary, single child. The deal is off."
Jack half-turns to the young man. "I like the philosophy."
"I gathered." Alice wonders what their relationship is like, to be so casual at such a serious moment.
"You yielded in the past." The 456 repeats. "You will do so again."
"In the past the numbers were so small, they could be kept secret. But this time, that is not going to happen. Because we've recorded everything, all the negotiations, everything the politicians said, everything that happened in this room. And those tapes will be released to the public. Unless you leave this planet for good."
Alice frowns. She doesn't know what good that would have done. But she's also sure she hasn't heard the entirety of Jack's plan.
"You yielded in the past. You will do so again." The creature in the tank isn't going to give up. She knows that. She knows it had power over the world, more power than Jack could stop with television footage.
"When people find out the truth, you will have over six billion angry human beings taking up arms to fight you. That might be a fight you think you can win, but at the end of, the human race in defence of its children will fight to the death. And if I have to lead them into battle, then I will."
"You've got enough information on this planet," says the young man. "Check your records. His name is Captain Jack Harkness. Go back a hundred and fifty years, and see what you're facing."
A short pause. "This is fascinating, isn't it?" The voice is cruel, sinister. "The human infant mortality rate is twenty nine thousand, one hundred and fifty-eight deaths per day. Every three seconds, a child dies. The human response is to accept and adapt."
"We're adapting right now, and we're making this a war." Jack commands. His face is beginning to contort into an angry sneer.
Another, longer pause. "Then the fight begins," says the ominous deep voice. There is silence. Jack and the young man look at each other, nervous, confused. A strange noise is coming from the tank.
"We're waiting for you're reply," Jack demands.
"Action has been taken." The 456 states. Jack and his companion glance at each other again, and then alarms begin to go off, lights flashing red across the room.
"What've you done?" Jack yells, his voice tight.
"You wanted a demonstration of war. A virus has been released. It will kill everyone in the building." Jack looks terrified, his face falling. He grabs the shoulders of the young man before racing out of the room.
Damn Jack, she thinks. He did this. He declared war and he killed hundreds of people. He could never have gone up against the 456 alone. She didn't know what he was thinking.
The young man stares and the tank for just a moment before pulling his gun from his waistband and cocking it. He points it at the tank, his face stoic. She can tell he knows it'll do nothing, but he'll try anyway.
"If there is a virus, then there must be an anti-virus." He states, his Welsh accent thicker than before. "Release it now or I'll blow a hole in that tank, and we'll all die together."
She's amazed that he's so willing to give his life for Thames House, for Torchwood. He's so young, why would he take dying so easily? Jack runs back in, his own gun drawn. They stand side by side, guns raised.
"You made your point, now stop this and we can talk!" Jack voice is laced with fear.
"You are dying, even now." States the 456. Twin expressions of anger, and Jack and the young man are firing uselessly at the tank, the bullets ricocheting off easily. Jack suddenly looks terrified. She's never her seen him look afraid, not really, and that expression scares her.
A piercing shriek emits from the speakers. Jack and his companion look bewildered. Jack is shifting on his feet, ready to fight, to run, uncertain.
"What's that noise?" he asks, "What's it doing?"
The alien lunges at the glass, green sludge caking the walls, a bulbous appendage thudding dangerously against the layer of protection. Jack and the young man look confused, staring at the tank. Then the young man sways a little on his feet, looks down. She sees him mouth 'shit' to himself. Jack glances over to him, his face morphing from confusion to intense concern, terror flashing across his features. His eyes are already glassy with tears and pink around the edges. He grabs the young man about the shoulders, looking into his face.
"We've got to get you out of here! I can survive anything but you can't!"
"It's too late." The young man's voice is sad, resigned. "I breathed the air."
"There's gotta be something! There's gotta be an antidote!" Her father sounds frantic, more terrified than she's ever seen him.
"You said you would fight." The 456 interrupts them.
Jack looks from the tank to his companion and back again. His face is stricken. "Then I take it back, all right? I take it all back but not him!"
Her father is close to tears, voice breaking, she's never seen him this frightened, this protective. The young man sways again, frowning slightly as his knees begin to buckle against his will. Jack turns and catches him quickly, a chorus of 'no's falling from his lips.
"No! Ianto!" She finally learns the man's name. It's a desperate cry in her father's voice, his whispered pleas of 'no' following the name. His hands ghost over Ianto's face, brushing back his hair, cupping his cheek, moving down to pull him more securely into his lap. Ianto's eyes are already closing, his breathing already laboured. Jack's whispering his name interspersed with quite pleas of dissent.
"The remnant will be disconnected." The 456 announces. Neither man pays any attention. Jack is peppering kisses on Ianto's forehead and petting his hair. He sits up as Ianto's breath quickens.
"It's all my fault." Tears are leaking from his eyes. He looks sure of himself, completely convinced.
The young man—Ianto—frowns up at him, looking earnest, honest. "No, it's not." He insists, his voice laden with tears.
Jack's throat works for a moment before he gets it going again. "Don't speak. Save your breath." He cups Ianto's face, his breathing coming in shaky sobs. His thumb rubs gently across the young man's face. It looks so natural. Alice wonders how many times he's done that same action before.
Ianto's face tightens into a pained grimace and he lets out a wet sob, and then, "I love you."
Jack looks almost surprised. Then his expression turns to realization—Ianto is saying goodbye. His eyes look resigned and melancholy and too old under his determined expression. He shakes his head.
"Don't."
Alice wants to slap him. She wants to take him by the shoulders and shake him and tell him to tell the young man in his arms what he means to him, because it's so obvious in the franticness of his voice just moments ago. But she also knows that this is what her father does. He hopes too much when there is no hope, and when there is hope, he pushes people away so he won't get hurt later.
He can't say goodbye to Ianto because he isn't ready to give up, even though it's obvious he's going to die. He can't say goodbye because can't stand to lose people, he can't stand to be alone. From the expression on her father's face, Alice is pretty sure that this young man's death is going to affect her father more than many other deaths she knows he's seen.
The young man stares up Jack with a pleading expression, then his eyes flutter back and his face slackens. Alice can tell he's fighting a losing battle, that despite all his love for Jack Harkness, the virus is taking hold and he's going fast. Jack is sobbing, his breath hitching and quaking. Ianto's eyes close and he goes limp.
"Ianto. Ianto? Ianto, stay with me." Jack's face slackens to a desperate sadness and suddenly he is clutching the young man, sobbing, his voice high with wretchedness and fear, begging frantically, shaking the young man awake. "Ianto, stay with me, please! Stay with me! Stay with me, please! Please!"
Ianto opens his eyes blearily, looking around him, terrified. Then he slowly looks over at Jack. Her father is breathing fast, blinking, trying hard not to break down. His shoulders are heaving. His hand is still stroking the young man's cheek lovingly, soothingly. Ianto blinks at him.
"Hey. It was good, yeah?"
"Yeah." Jack's reply is stilted by his attempt to keep tears at bay. He looks like he wants to say more, much more, but can't bring himself to do it.
Ianto grimaces again. "Don't forget me." He pleads.
Jack fights with his expression, determination and then regret and then sadness and then reassurance flicking across his face. Alice can tell he's trying so hard not to promise, not to swear to something she knows he can't always keep.
"Never could." Alice knows that's as close to 'I promise' as Jack's going to get. She also knows that it's better than many of Jack's family or other lovers have ever gotten. This Ianto must be special.
"A thousand years time." Ianto speculates, "You won't remember me."
"Yes, I will." Jack insists. And the conviction in his voice is stronger, truer than Alice has ever heard it and she knows he means it more than nearly anything he's ever said. She knows this is his version of a promise. And then, "I promise. I will."
She's slightly blown away by this. As long as she's known her father, as long as Lucia had known her father, he'd never promised anything. He'd told them both that he could never promise anything because when you never died, you couldn't hold them true. It was impossible.
Ianto opens his mouth to say something back, something important, but his breaths quicken, he's gasping for air, and then suddenly he relaxes, his eyes closed. Jack stares at him, trembling visibly.
"Ianto," he whispers fearfully, begging, like a child. "Ianto. Ianto? Don't go. Don't leave me please! Please, don't!"
He looks terrified, angry, desperate, wretched and grief-stricken all at once.
"You will die. And tomorrow you will deliver the children," says the disembodied voice of the 456. Alice had nearly forgotten about it in the intensity of the exchange between the two men.
Jack glares up at the 456 from his position on the floor, his expression hateful, livid now. He's shaking, rocking slightly. He shifts Ianto's body closer, looking down at it. Then he leans in and kisses the young man on the lips, gentle and tender and loving, before slowly sliding away and down as the virus takes him as well. The two men are tangled together on the floor of the room, Jack lying protectively behind Ianto. Alice is reminded of the famous Pompeii victims, the Lovers, two skeletons found wrapped around each other in an embrace, each gently cupping the other's face.
Nothing moves. The red light flashes, staining the scene with a wash like blood. The 456 is silent. Her father and his lover are entwined together and still with death.
Angela sniffs and reaches a hand over to fast forward the tape. Alice is suddenly aware of the tears blurring her vision, the wetness of her face. She reaches over and grabs a tissue, blows her nose and wipes her eyes. She glances over at her friend. Angela's face is wet as well, her eyes tired and sad and red-rimmed. She accepts the tissue Alice hands her.
The tape fast forwards for a long time. People are waiting for the virus to disperse. And she knows from Johnson herself that there were bodies pile ten high at the front door, and more scattered about who had succumbed to death as they desperately tried to escape.
Then a man in an official-looking uniform comes in. He surveys the scene, takes notes on the room, then approaches the bodies. His hardened, stoic face softens, saddens as he looks upon the two. She can see tears in his eyes reflecting the light. She knows now how much Jack loved Ianto; she's sure it's even more apparent in person, even if they are dead.
The official man jots down notes on his clipboard forms, then speaks into his radio. Moments later, four men appear with gurneys. They stand beside their superior and stare down at the bodies, all obviously very reluctant to part them.
"It's like that photo from Pompeii," one observes.
"At least they both died with the person they loved." Another said.
"Usually this job doesn't get to me," the superior said, "But I'm really quite hesitant to part them. I wish there was some way to move them and respect their intimacy."
"We'll be very careful, sir." Says one. "Reverence like a king."
The superior nods, then beckons his team closer. They shuffle in.
"Listen," he says quietly. "I know we have row categories for ages and ethnicities, but I'm going to ask that you disregard that rule for these two. Tell no one. You will put these two beside each other in the morgue."
There's a chorus of "Yes, sir"s and the group of men get to work. They are, as they promised, respectful and reverent. Soon, they are carting Jack and Ianto out of the room, the two men pushing the gurneys taking care to stay in perfect stride.
Angela clicks through different CCTV feeds, following the gurneys as the men take them downstairs and out, sure to stay precisely beside each other at all times. They are loaded into the back of a black van, obviously a private one, not the large lorry thing that she knows took most of the bodies to that gym.
Then Angela's footage switches over to the gym. The men are still in stride with each other as they entire the room, the large basketball court lined with bodies covered by red sheets.
The two men roll the gurneys to two empty places. Then they carefully lift the two bodies down, removing them from the body bags to place them gently onto the red sheet. Alice remembers that they had to reuse the body bags for transport, as there weren't enough for every body. Jack and Ianto are placed beside each other, and red sheets are place on top of their bodies as well.
They fast forward again. For a while nothing happens, except men and women with gurneys coming in and out to deposit corpses onto red sheets. Then a group of UNIT men enter, accompanying Gwen, the woman from Torchwood. The men point towards Jack and Ianto, the number of their bodies repeated robotically for her. Then they leave, stiff and android-like.
Gwen kneels down and pulls the sheet back from Jack's face. Jack is already looking less pale, more alive. But Alice can see the tear marks on his face. Then Gwen breaths slowly, trying to compose herself, before pulling back the second sheet. Ianto's face is pale and still. Gwen strokes a hand down the young man's tie and struggles not to cry.
Jack suddenly opens his eyes, his resurrection a quiet intake of breath. He stares up at the ceiling, looking lost and sad, before sitting up. His expression is desolate as he turns to look at Ianto and Gwen beside him. He moves closer to her, putting his arms around her to look down at Ianto's body. Gwen is crying, and Jack has regret and defeat in his eyes. She touches his hands.
"There's nothing we can do." Gwen whispers, shaking her head. Jack says nothing, simply stares down at Ianto's body. There are long, hurting moments of silence. "Jack?"
Alice wishes she could not see her father's expression. He looks a million years old, defeated and tired and full of grief and aching and regret. More tears add themselves to the tracks on his face and he pulls away from his colleague, drawing into himself. He won't look away from Ianto's face.
Gwen stands slowly. "Jack? I need to go talk to UNIT. I'll…I'll leave you here for a little while but…Frobisher wants to talk to you."
Jack nods once, but Alice is sure he heard not one of the words just uttered. Gwen turns away reluctantly and strides out the door, her shoes echoing on the wood. It is only when her footsteps can no longer be heard that Jack moves.
He scoots closer to Ianto's body, one hand cupping the pale face, his other hand clutching at Ianto's. He kisses Ianto's forehead gently, lingering much longer than usual. Then his whole body sags, as if he's just realized from the cold on his lips that Ianto truly is gone. His face crumples and desolation floods his features. He seems to half lower himself, half fall onto the floor beside Ianto's body, edging closer, trying to wrap himself around the man. He places an arm protectively over the young man's chest, the other in his hair. Alice can see that he is whispering in Ianto's ear, but it's much too soft to hear. He stays like that, stroking Ianto's hair and kissing his face gently, until he hears Gwen's boots on the floor outside again. Then he scrambles into a sitting position and continues to stare dismally at the body. Gwen says nothing, although Alice is almost certain that she is aware of what Jack had been doing,
She touches his shoulder gently, speaks quietly in his ear, and Alice knows she's telling him it's time to go by the way his face falls. He cups Ianto's face one more time, stroking his cheek with a thumb, and kisses him tenderly on the lips. Then he sucks in a deep breath, audible through the speakers, and Alice watches as his shoulders straighten, his chin raises, his mask falls into place. But the cracks are obvious and he's still slumped slightly like he's lost everything and is carrying the burden of the world on his shoulders.
Angela closes the window.
"He and Frobisher spoke. Frobisher agreed to bring the woman back to Cardiff. Harkness was taken to the same holding facility you were in, as was Lois Habiba."
She clicks open another two videos. The first plays. It's Jack, escorted by guards, walking down the hallway, his face apathetic and defeated. It's very short. The second is from within a cell. His handcuffs are removed and the door is shut. Jack sits slowly down and stares at the wall, nothing but sadness in his face. Then he closes his eyes, his expression full of anguish and regret, and hangs his head. His shoulders shake silently and he hides his face in his hands. After a long time, he looks up again. His face holds more ruin than Alice has ever seen in her life. She knows she is crying again.
After a long, long time of Jack simply sitting in quiet, lamenting, crushed contemplation, his head in his hands, the door bursts open and he is pulled roughly out. The room is empty and still.
Angela closes the window and leans back, rubbing a hand over her face. "That's when I went and got him. You…you know the rest."
Alice thinks back to the moments before it happened, before her father had incurred her hatred. She remembers suddenly the tears in his eyes that he was obviously fighting to hold back, the sadness, the loss and misery inside them that she had not noticed before. She remembers the falseness of his smile, the numb despondency behind it. She remembers his despair, and realizes that he knew he was defeated, he knew there was nothing left, no other way, as soon as Dekker said the word. She realizes that the loss of his lover, of Ianto, had broken him and that he'd been so cracked open and raw that he was numb with shock and loss and grief. She's always known that her father lost everyone, but she'd never seen loss's effect on him, how devastated he truly became. She'd been so wrapped up in her own problems, in her own son, that she hadn't seen her father's losses.
She is aware now of just how important Steven was, of just how big a role he played and how much of a young hero he was. Angela has said it many times, Gwen and Bridget have as well, when they came to see her. She hates that her son had to die, she still grieves him, she still feels anger towards the government and towards Jack for it, but she has accepted that his death was necessary and that he had saved the planet. She thinks of him now as her son, the hero, not her son, the boy that Jack and the government and those aliens killed. She sees him in a good light, finally.
And now she is seeing the full extent of her father's losses. She is realizing just how much he had lost in those days, just how far he'd been pushed and how thin he'd been stretched. She remembers that Jack had lived in Torchwood's base, had kept much of his stuff there, since it was safer than any storage facility (or so he said). She is realizing that not only had he lost his lover and his base, but also his home, his mementos, his memories, his keepsakes and love letters and gifts from lovers and families and friends, all of his possessions.
And now suddenly she feels awful. Because yes, she lost her son, and yes, she's still grieving, still working to move on. But Jack lost his home, his base, his keepsakes, his life, his lover, his grandson and his daughter, all in the space of a few short days. It's a loss she can't even comprehend. She remembers the way his face fell, his eyes darkening with hopelessness and his face slack with anguish and such intense, aching grief as he realized Ianto was really gone.
"Oh god, Daddy." She whispers to the man she can suddenly see. It's a term she hasn't bestowed on Jack since she was a child, still called Melissa, still idolizing her father, still looking into his smiling face with love and trust and adoration. She's crying hard now, weeping for her own father, for what he lost and what she never realized. She can't stand to think of the wretched look in his eyes. She can't stand to try and fathom the emptiness he must have felt then, the loneliness.
She gets up from the chair and goes out into the hall, fishing her cell phone from her pocket. She dials the number that will send a message to the leather device on Jack's wrist, and presses send. She recognized the series of tones that's some sort of intergalactic signal for "leave a message."
"Dad—" She stops, then starts again, her breath hitching as the tears start again. "Dad, I'm so sorry. I finally understand now. I saw the footage of those days, all of it. I didn't understand. I'm sorry. Daddy, I didn't realize how much you lost. I didn't know about your base, or Ianto. I didn't realize what everything had done to you. Dad, I—I'm not going to forgive you for Steven's death. But Daddy, I forgive you for everything else. Not all of that is your fault. Ianto was right, listen to him. It's not all your fault. It's not. Please just remember that. I don't know where or when you are, but please just remember us, me and Ianto and Steven. Don't forget us, and don't push us away. Remember that it's not all your fault. We absolve you of so many of the sins you think haunt you. They aren't yours, Dad. Remember that you are human, and that humans make mistakes. And remember, Dad, remember that you are good."