a/n: Episode Tag: The Blood Line, season 4 finale; major spoilers, AU tiwst. Warning: A "Esther Resurrection" fic below.

The Blood That Flows In These Veins

After the initial shot, none had seen the small trickle of blood that had first blossomed from Esther wound float through the air and into the Blessing.

The bullet tore through her flesh at a speed unseen to her. She would have thought that because it was traveling at such a high speed, that when it sliced through her flesh that she wouldn't feel a thing—it was quite the opposite in fact. Esther Drummed had never been shot before, heck the only real injury that she had ever gotten was when she was twelve and a school bully had shoved her down the slid before she was ready—she had flew over the sand and landed on the pavement, breaking her arm in two places. If she had thought that that had been painful, it felt like nothing compared to this.

A strangled noise left her throat as she took an involuntary step back, the noise lost in the echo of the gun shot. She heard Rex scream her name through the rush of blood in her ears as well as the panicked voices of Gwen and Jack from the speakers that were hooked up somewhere unseen around here in the deep bowels of earth. Rex was there, barely able to catch her as her knees gave way under her.

Esther couldn't move, she was frozen in Rex's arms in shock and pain. She knew that she would have been dead by now, if it weren't for the Miracle. But it wasn't as if she was expecting to survive this, none of them were. She was fine with that, as long as she was able to help turn the World back before that had happened. Her breath was coming in shallow gasps, through her pain filled gaze she should see Rex above her, panic written all over his face and in his eyes.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go down, but it had happened and the only thing left to do was carry on with the mission. She tried to speak, but it was like her vocal cords were no longer working and all that came out was a pitiful, broken groan. She wanted to tell Rex—no, she wanted to yell at Rex to hurry up and do it before it was too late, before they shot him too. They knew now, because of that women from one of the families that was with Jack and Gwen that Jack's mortal blood had to be introduced to the Blessing on either side of the Earth at the exact same time or it wouldn't work.

Rex seemed to think the same thing—about carrying on with the mission the second she wanted to yell at him. He looked down at Esther, an apologetic look on his face as he gently sat her down on the metal walk-way. He gave her one last look before he stood up and walked over to the railing—to the edge,

"Let's do this," he called out, "Jack!" and in once smooth motion her reached up and ripped his shirt open, before tearing the bandage off from over his heart.

He grunted in pain as whatever blood was left in his body was sucked out and into the Blessing. He wasn't sure how long it had lasted, but he was sure that the pain that he as feeling in that moment meant that Jack had fed his blood to the Blessing too and things were going back to normal. He gripped the railing for support refusing to go down just yet. He turned, and found the eyes of the man that had shot Esther, his own filled with such anger and hate. He lunged forward and before the man could move, Rex grabbed a hold of his suit jacket and with every once of strength he possessed, threw him over the railing.

This place was collapsing all around them, and so did Rex. He was right next to Esther, who was still alive as it turned out. Her eyes filled with pain and she stared at him. There were shouts above the noise of the collapsing structure and hands were on her, carrying her in a rush of motion to the surface. She was placed on a gurney next to Rex as EMS worked on them both, trying patch up their wounds. But Esther knew that it was of no use, that the wound that she bore was fatal and she was quite surprised that she was still alive as of yet. It wasn't as if she wanted to die, but was surprised and kind of pleased.

Though she knew that she shouldn't get her hopes up; because the edges of her sight were growing darker and fainter. The life left her, her last sights of the blue sky in a parking lot.

Esther gasped, it was dark and stuffy and she was genuinely uncomfortable. It was cramped and she was scared, not understanding what was going on. She felt her breast, her hand going under the shirt that she didn't remember owning and felt for the gun shot wound that had received. But under her finger tips all she felt was that of smooth, unscarred skin. She was breathing, that was obvious by the hot air that was gasping from her lungs and warming the already smothering air around her, the way that her chest rose and fell, the way her heart rate was up, contributing in her up and coming panic attack.

She felt around her, her hands always coming in contact with padding barely a foot away from her. She took deep breaths, forcing herself to calm down, even though all she wanted to do was scream. She knew what she was in and knew why she was in it, but that didn't stop the fear. What if she was already under the ground? She had no idea how long she had been dead for—dead, it sounded funny, even in her head. Esther still couldn't believe that the Blessing was buried and that Miracle Day was no longer.

So the how was she alive now? She placed her hands against the padding in front of her face and pushed. Nothing happened and she was sure that for a moment her heart had skipped a beat in fear—and all she could see for a second was dirt. She pushed again, this time her fear adding to her strength. It lifted a few inches and a stream of bright light shone through for a second before the lid above her came back down. Next time when she pushed, her strength was fueled by anticipation of her freedom, relief of knowing that she wasn't hallucinating, and happiness for seeing her friends again; Jack, Rex and Gwen, and with just a tint of fear.

It was fully open now, and for a second she was blinded as a beam of sunlight shone right in her face. She squinted, sitting up and flipping open the lid that covered her legs. Esther looked around; she was in a church temple, the pews below her empty and the windows that of stain-glass. She climbed out of the coffin with a shudder, landing on stone steps. She turned her back to the pews, taking in the coffin and flowers, and the framed picture of herself.

So she had actually been dead. Taking a deep breath she stepped down from the steps and walked down the isle on slightly unsteady legs. She came to the huge wooden double doors, they were open, yet no one seemed to notice the fact that she was walking around alive. She looked out into the Hall, there seemed to be a few stragglers, and looking further she noticed that some were agents from the office—one of which she noticed that farther down was Charlotte Wills. Just before her, Esther noticed a stand-still trio—the very people that she had hoped to see in the first place; Rex, Jack and Gwen.

She was about to call out to them, ready to run and get teary-eyed, not caring that people would be freaked that she was alive—and she couldn't believe that they could be, not after what had happened in the past months.

"Charlotte!" Rex called, moving towards her. "Hang on a sec."

Charlotte stopped and turned towards Rex—her gun drawn. Before anyone could react—especially Rex—she fired, the bullet hitting Rex right where Esther had been hit earlier.

"Rex!" Esther screamed, her yell being drowned out as the other agents in the hall drew their guns and fired upon Charlotte, she fell to the ground dead with a stomach full of lead.

Rex was on the ground too, Jack and Gwen bent over him. Esther ran towards them, getting there just as Jack took his finger away from Rex's throat and that was when she heard his words,

"I'm so sorry, he's dead."

"What?" Esther said, her voice but a whisper; there was no way that Rex could be dead, not now, not after everything.

Upon hearing her voice Gwen looked behind Jack and her jaw all but dropped. "Esther!" she exclaimed.

"What?" Jack said, looking at Gwen before turning to look behind him. "Esther?" he said, his voice not as shocked as Gwen's was.

Esther tore her eyes away from Rex. "Hi," was all that came out of her mouth.

Jack and Gwen's mouth opened at the same time, but before they could demand answers and Esther could stutter out an answer, Rex gasped; his back coming off of the floor with the strength up it.

"Rex!" Gwen exclaimed, more shocked now too.

"What?" Rex said, gasping.

Just as Gwen and Jack said: "What?"

"How?" Rex asked, his hand going up to his chest, he tore the top of his shirt open and they all looked down just in time to see the gun shot wound and gash over his heart heal. "You; World War II," Rex blamed, looking up at Jack. "You did this to me." before Jack could say anything, Rex looked behind Jack to find someone who he thought was dead. "Esther?" he said in confusion. "What the hell?"

Jack and Gwen looked back at her too, apparently fine with Rex coming back to life in front of their eyes, but for Esther it seemed to be a different story.

"Uh," Esther started, looking down at them. That was when Rex's comment came back to her: "You. World War II, you did this to me." She swallowed. "When we transfused Jack's blood into Rex, I took a bag too." she told them.

"But that would have killed you." Gwen pointed out, but Esther shook her head.

"It wouldn't have because it was just one bag. And any way," she said, looking at Jack, "We have the same blood type."

Jack couldn't help the amazed twitch that curved the corner of his lips. "That would explain it." he told them.

"It would?" Gwen asked, even more confused than ever.

Jack nodded, "Of course it would," at their confused looks he continued, "Rex filled his body with my blood, and that caused him to become immortal like me. He just heals quicker because his whole body was filled with it, as to Esther who just took a bag of it." he looked up at Esther. "That was why it took her a whole week to heal and Rex just a few minutes."

"That makes sense . . . I guess." Rex said, sitting up. "So, what do we do now?"

Everyone was silent and Jack looked at each of the in turn,

"Torchwood, anyone?"

note: I hoped you like this "Esther Resurrection", and I do hope that I got her right. Please review this, I would love to hear what you think.