Disclaimer: Don't own the characters

Disclaimer: Don't own the characters.

Warning(s): SLASH!! Oh and the characters may seem a little OOC. AU now that Season Two has started as it is NOT going to link into season two.

The Year That Never Was.

Chapter Two.

Owen had been silent all three hours that they had been walking, trudging on behind Ianto and Tosh. He'd cried for a while, thinking of Gwen, thinking of Diane, his parents, July his school sweetheart and his first love. All the people he had ever loved, gone, dead. And he was still alive, trudging along towards a place that held some of his worst memories. Once his tears were spent and only the rain water dripped down his face he began to become more like his normal self, his emotions calming so that he could keep them in check.

"How much further? I'm starting to remember why I hate the countryside," he said loudly causing Tosh to snigger softly. She too had cried for a while, hugging herself as she walked but after a while she'd taken the map from Ianto and given herself something to focus on. When Ianto had had the time to get the right map neither of the other two knew but they were thankful he had thought to bring it.

"Not far," she said at last, "This is starting to look a bit familiar and if I'm right it's only two more hills, that's if I'm right. Not too good with maps…" she looked nervously down at the soaking map in her hands.

"Don't knock yourself down Tosh, you can read a map," Ianto said gently, his breath coming in short gasps. His shoulders were killing him, his back was killing him and he was ice cold. But they were all cold thanks to the seemingly never ending rain. Two long hills later and they got their first glimpse of the place that had haunted all of them in their nightmares, the cannibals village. And there was no sign of life and no sign of any spheres.

"We're back," Owen said softly, "We're fucking back."

"We'll make camp in the Pub," Ianto said calmly, "We can go around the village, find any tins of food still in date, blankets, clothes, stuff like that."

"I won't wear their clothes," Tosh said quickly.

"Would you rather stay soaking wet Tosh? Because one of the things I didn't have time to pack was a change of clothes for all of us," Ianto said calmly, putting his arm round her, "It'll be alright, Tosh."

The door to the pub still had the police tape over it but was unlocked and swung open with a small creak. Trying the light switch didn't work, the electricity was off it seemed but luckily it was still reasonably light outside and they could see inside the dusty room. It had been cleaned up by the police, the broken furniture they'd used to barricade the door was gone and the door to the basement was open. Owen insisted on checking down there as soon as he was in the pub and closed the door behind him, locking it securely. He wasn't too manly to say the place still scared the crap out of him.

"Right, we need to gather supplies from the other buildings that we can use and get this place liveable. Tosh, sorry to be stereotypical here but can you sort out what and how we're going to eat?" Ianto asked and was thankful when his female friend nodded and slowly went into the pubs kitchen to start her job. Thankfully, as protocol demands, the police had cleared out everything to do with the cannibals and left the place like a normal kitchen. "Owen, we're going to need heat, blankets, maybe a fire and we'll need to be able to see at night so candles would be good and matches of course. Can you do that?"

"Yes," Owen answered quickly, "But what are you going to do?"

"Scout the perimeter, gather some firewood from the woods and make this place more like a home. You know, make some beds," Ianto said calmly, "Unless you'd rather do that."

"No, I'm good," Owen said quickly, "You can make us a home. Can I have the comfiest bed?" a little bit of his old personality peaked through in his attempt at a joke and Ianto couldn't help but smile.

The three set about their jobs, going from house to house to collect things, each with a gun on their body for protection. Tosh had quickly discovered that the gas had been shut off and so, with slight difficulty set up a wood burning stove (sort of) in the pubs kitchen. Taking the cans and packets of food, the stuff that the police had left behind, from the other houses she stocked the pubs kitchen, filling the shelves as much as she could. Owen had found a boarded up chimney in the main room of the pub and had taken a sledge hammer (found in the basement) to it to unblock it.

"It might be blocked further up," Ianto pointed out as he put a pillow case on one of the pillows he'd collected. Tosh had insisted that he change all the bedding, Ianto had been planning to do that anyway. Just the thought of sleeping on the same bedding as those cannibalistic monsters had sent a chill down his spine.

"Any suggestions?" Owen asked, standing with his hands on his hips before he caught himself in the rather feminine pose and dropped his hands to his sides. Ianto grabbed the old broom he'd used to sweep the room and placed it in Owens hands. "What am I meant to do with this?" Ianto sighed and took the broom back before crouching by the rough whole in the wall and rammed the broom up as far as he could, a shower of soot falling down as he did so. "Oh."

"You finish that off Owen, I have my own jobs to do," Ianto gave the now black broom to Owen and set about arranging the mattresses that he had scavenged on the floor so that they would all be within warming distance of the fire. "Don't forget to tidy it all up once the fireplace its ready."

"Um, guys?" Tosh spoke quietly from the doorway to the kitchen, "I think we might have a bit of a problem that we may have overlooked."

"What?" Owen asked, rubbing some of the soot from his face but only managing to smudge more into his skin. In another time and place it would have been a rather cute and endearing sight.

"How are we going to light fires? Did we find any matches?" The female of the group asked. Ianto cursed himself mentally for forgetting to look for matches.

"It's alright, I've got my lighter," Owen answered, shoving the absolutely filthy broom up the chimney once again, "Once we've lit this fire we'll keep it going and light any other fires we need with it."

"You have a lighter?" Tosh asked with a small frown.

"It was Diane's, she left it at mine when she left," Owen answered quietly, pulling out an old fashioned Zippo lighter from his pocket, "I keep it with me." Tosh's expression turned from confusion to sadness at his admission but she said nothing as he turned back to his task, putting even more effort into it than before as he tried to banish the unhappy thoughts of the past.

"Have you got any firewood yet Owen?" Ianto asked calmly, standing up from where he'd just finished making the last bed up.

"Not yet. Been busy."

"Then I'll go as I'm done making our beds and we're going to need that fire soon. It's starting to get dark and cold out," Ianto said, tidying up the four full bin liners that he'd brought back from the houses with him, putting them up on one of the tables in the pub.

"What's in the bags Yan?" Tosh asked, seeing them for the first time having been in the kitchen when he came back from his little trip to the other houses.

"Spare clothes, more bedding, clean towels, loo rolls, soap. The essentials really," Ianto shrugged, "And don't worry Tosh I took clothes from the airing cupboards and radiators, the freshly washed stuff. They hadn't yet been worn by the cannibals," Ianto's voice was soft and reassuring, causing Tosh to smile, she'd barely contained a shudder, "So…firewood."

"Yeah, I'll have this finished by the time you come back," Owen said with his head in the fireplace, his arse wiggling as he scrubbed at…something on the floor of the chimney with the brush, trying to remove it.

"Nice ass," Ianto commented calmly before her was gone. Tosh fled back to the kitchen to get the things she needed to cook ready for when the fires were lit, giggling all the way. Owen, with his head still in the fireplace, blushed a deep red.

"This is good Tosh," Ianto commented as they all sat at one of the pubs tables, eating their meal in a rather civilised fashion. The two fires were burning well and heating the place up nicely and as the light had faded lit the place up pretty well as did the candles that Ianto had found. They wouldn't last forever however but their wood supply was quite good being that there was an entire forest on their doorstep.

"This is far too…civilised for the end of the world," Owen said with a shake of his head, "All across the world people are dead and dying and we're…"

"Doing what we can Owen, surviving. Tomorrow we'll look into what we can do to help others," Ianto spoke calmly, "We'll see who we can help, we'll get Tosh's lap top running, we'll see about getting the electricity in this place running, we'll find out what's happening. But tonight we'll recover and we'll grieve. Tonight we'll just be us, not Torchwood. Torchwoods gone…until tomorrow."

"…" Owen couldn't seem to form words after Ianto's speech.

"When did you turn into Jack?" Tosh asked seriously.

"When I needed to," Ianto answered sadly, "We need a 'Jack' and as he's not here to do it…"

"Do you think he's alright?" Tosh asked worriedly.

"He's a prisoner of that madman, of course he's not alright," Owen said bluntly. "But he's Jack so he'll be surviving. He always does and I'm not just talking about the whole immortality thing. Jack's a born survivor."

"Yeah, yeah he is," Tosh breathed, sounding a little reassured. "So who's washing up? I cooked so not me." She'd discovered while cooking that the water was still on but only cold, the boiler had been turned off along with the electricity.

"I cleared out the chimney," Owen said quickly, "Ianto can wash up." Ianto shrugged and popped the last mouthful of food in his mouth before carefully laying his cutlery down on the clear plate. "I'm sure he won't mind."

"Of course not, I am after all a tea boy," a small grin flashed across Ianto's face as he rose and stacked the plates and cutlery with practised ease. Then he headed for the kitchen and ultimately the sink, filling it with ice cold water. He couldn't help but gasp when his hands were submerged in the water and set about the washing very quickly, wanting to get it over and done with as soon as possible.

"What time is it?" he heard Tosh ask in the other room.

"Half-eight," Owen answered, "I'll put some more wood on that fire or it'll die and we'll have to light it again. Someone will have to do it in the night as well or it won't survive."

"I'll do it," Ianto called out from the sink.

"We can take turns on different nights," Tosh said, hers the voice of reason, "You can't do it every night Ianto, that would be unfair. Just like I won't do the cooking every day."

"What is it with women and bloody rotors?" Owen grumbled unhappily.

"It's a sensible idea," Ianto placed the washed things in the drying rack beside the sing, "But we'll sort it out tomorrow."

"We'll sort everything out tomorrow by the sounds of it," Owen continued to grumble. Ianto ignored him and finished the washing, drying his hands on the towel Tosh had hung on one of the cupboard doors beside the sink before warming his chilled hands in front of the fire for a few moments. Tosh and Owen were still talking in the other room, talking about Gwen and about other people they'd most likely lost.

"I'll miss her," Tosh admitted sadly.

"Yeah," Owens voice was choked now.

"I wonder what happened to my family," Tosh said sadly, "To my dad and my uncles and cousins. My sister, she was in London. Do you think they're all dead?"

"I don't know Tosh. My family were all in London too," Owens voice had not lost any of the choked sound Ianto had heard moments before, "They could all be dead for all that we will ever know if life continues on like this."

"My family were scattered across Wales," Ianto spoke as he entered the other room, joining the other two who had moved and were sat on the mattress closest the fire, wrapped in blankets. It was certainly getting chilly very quickly. "But there's always a chance they survived."

"A chance? You two heard that madman, he ordered the spheres to remove one tenth of the worlds population. That's a lot Ianto! One tenth!" Owen snapped angrily, "D'you know their chances?!"

"We can't give up hope Owen," Ianto answered simply.

"At this rate hope will be all we have left and we can't live off hope alone Ianto," Owen looked away from the two.

"No, your right, we can't. But hope is the one thing that will keep us going," Ianto glared at the back of Owens head as Tosh let out a small sob, wiping at her eyes with her hands. "Come here Tosh." Ianto opened his arms and the woman slid into them quickly, pressing her face into his shoulder she began to sob almost pathetically. His hands rubbed soothing circles on her back, keeping her pressed up close against his chest, to be honest she was practically in his lap.

"I'm-I'm sorry Ianto…" she mumbled between tears.

"It's ok Tosh, I'm here for you. Cry away," Ianto said softly in her ear. And she did, even more pathetically than before. Owen turned around, biting his lip in an unusual display of worry for the woman.

"I didn't mean to worry you Tosh…it's just…I guess my nerves have reached the end of their tether today," Owen admitted sadly, "Gwen and everything else…" He gave a little gasp as tears threatened for him too, they were breaking down, their grief was starting to set in as Ianto had said it would, it was time for them to grieve.

"Owen…" Ianto beckoned to the other man with one hand, encouraging Owen to move closer, "Come on, Owen." Slowly Owen moved forwards on the mattress and was pulled into the hug as well, Ianto's own tears dripping down his pale cheeks. "Tonight's for this, for tears. Let it out."

"You too Ianto," Tosh whispered in his ear.

"I already am," Ianto smiled sadly and Tosh did think she felt a tear fall on the bare skin joining her neck and shoulder. But then it could have been from Owen who was now sobbing quietly into Ianto's other shoulder. "This is for all the people we have lost, the people we might have lost and the people that other people have lost." Ianto's voice wavered slightly at the end as he pressed his face into Tosh's hair, choking out his final words, "This is for Gwen, and for Diane, and for Lisa and for Jack…for the people we love."

And so the three co-workers and friends hugged and cried until they fell asleep, wrapped in each others arms. Ianto woke up about midnight, just as the fire was dying and extracting himself from the pile to add two more large bits of wood to the fire, adding some smaller twigs to get a blaze going again. He wasn't going to join the other two again, was going to slip into one of the other cold beds but Tosh, who wasn't really awake, grabbed him and pulled him back. He had after all been her pillow and she didn't like sleeping without a pillow.

Ianto had been right. After their night of grieving they set to work on their chosen tasks for their new home and team base.

Tosh set about making the place even more like a home. She scrubbed the kitchen and bathrooms until they shined and bleached and cleaned everything she could bleach or clean. She cleaned the main room, dusting and sweeping away all the dirt and grime she could find. It took nearly a week before she was satisfied with the state of the place. When this was done she set about creating a vegetable garden for them, extending one of the existing and neglected plots in the village. After all they couldn't live on tinned food forever, their supply simply wouldn't last and it really wouldn't be too good for all of them. Sooner or later they were going to have to go and trap some animals somehow, they needed some meat in their diets as well as the vegetables. Tosh was determined to leave that lovely job for the boys to do.

Owen had taken the job of creating their base in the pub. Using his remarkably extensive and usually hidden knowledge of computers he hooked Tosh's laptop up to the Internet via the pubs phone line. Then, with a little help from the Asian technology expert, he made the connection secure and untraceable. They didn't want to be discovered after all. Tidying away the cables had taken the better part of a day and a whole role of duck-tape. After he found a walkers map of Wales in one of the houses he pinned it up on one of the walls and took to plotting the facts that they knew on it. Where they were. Where the hub was. And as he discovered news via the Internet of others he marked their positions too. It was a shame that they didn't have a map of the entire United Kingdom; it would have been useful to mark the important points of the rest of the country too. In a moment of inspiration Owen turned the chalkboard that Gwen used last time into a memorial plaque,

To those we have known and lost.

To those we did not know but still lost.

To those we will loose.

We honour and remember you.

Owen Harper.

Toshiko Sato.

Ianto Jones.

It had been a very touching thing to do three weeks into their new lives and had set the all off crying once again.

Now while Tosh and Owen were doing there set tasks Ianto was the odd-jobs man. Of course he kept them all supplied with teas and coffees and cold drinks too. He kept the pubs generator going, earning a few small cuts and many bruises. It was quite a temperamental machine and luckily it was so old that it ran on burning wood so there was no question of the fuel running out. And like her kept the fire in the generator going he kept the other two fires going too. He was also the one to fetch the wood and other burnable resources, spending hours at a time fetching and carrying. Between doing his odd jobs and fixing the jenny Ianto made a detailed inventory of everything they had from food to clothes to chairs to weapons. Owen had made a comment that Ianto really liked his filing; even after the end of the world he found an excuse to do filing. It had taken Ianto a month to finish it and by the end the list took up 36 double sided pages of an A4 notepad. But after the inventory was made and kept on the bar all three of them agreed it was a lot easier to find out if they had enough of something or if they'd found the thing they needed previously. No more searching around in the large kitchen/store room. One thing that Ianto had taken upon himself was their safety, he changed the locks on the two doors they used with ones from upstairs that had had the keys in them, making it so they could lock the pub at night, making them feel safer. And doing all this Ianto tried not to think about Jack, to worry about Jack…it didn't work. His worry for his lover and boss didn't go away, it just got smaller as other things took priority. Like surviving.

After two months they had settled into a daily routine but none of them had seen another human being except on the news broadcasts sent out by that madman in charge from the Valiant. They showed work camps, people being treated as slaves, rebellions being crushed, people being punished…and of course the daily announcements from the man himself.

"D'you think Jack's still alive?" Tosh asked quietly one day, "Sorry, stupid question. I meant do you think he's ok?" All three of them were on their knees in the vegetable garden doing what needed to be done and getting rather filthy doing it.

"Probably, you know Jack," Ianto tried to sound reassuring, he really did try.

"Yeah we do know Jack and knowing Jack he's probably managed to piss off all his guards by now," Owen chuckled softly.

"Jack does have a knack for doing that," Tosh agreed with a small smile, her mood brightening slightly, "I could do with a drink."

"One coffee coming up," Ianto brushed the dirt of his knees as he stood and then off his hands, "I'll bring it out to you when it's ready Tosh."

"I'll have one too if that's alright?" Owen said as he too stood, "I've got to watch the broadcast, see if there is anything important in it today and I'll need coffee to help me get through it." Owen was the one to watch the horrifying broadcasts every day, the one to take notes of important facts and keep a record of what was happening day by day. Ianto nodded to the other man, agreeing and walked into the kitchen; filling the kettle he hung it above the fire.

It was this moment, when both of the men were inside doing their individual tasks when it happened. It was the arrival of a patrol of spheres; their whining engines preceding them. Ianto and Owen ran to the doors; Ianto to the front, Owen to the back. Ianto slammed the door and locked it even though he knew it wouldn't stop them getting in if they wanted to. Owen kept his door open.

"Tosh! Get inside!" he screamed out at the woman who stood frozen in the garden, a little trowel still held in her hand, "Tosh move!" But she didn't, she stood frozen to the spot, staring at the spheres coming quickly towards her.

"Tosh!" Ianto was behind Owen, trying to push past him to get to her.

"No! It's too late," Owen hissed, grabbing the Welshman firmly about the waist, stopping him in his tracks.

"We can't just abandon her!" Ianto snapped, struggling hard. Owen put a hand over Ianto's mouth and held him tight enough about the waist to bruise, watching in silence at what was happening in the garden. Tosh was standing with her hands above her head and the five spheres had formed a tight circle around her, circling slowly.

"What is the nature of your presence here?" one demanded, moving in close to her face. She flinched back slightly in fear.

"I was…hiding here," Tosh answered fearfully.

"From us?"

"Yes."

"Honesty, a good trait. Master encourages honesty. Are you alone here?"

"I am now," Tosh wasn't taking her eyes of the spheres, she wasn't even going to look towards the pub in case the spheres got suspicious.

"Explain."

"I had two friends with me but…they died."

"How?"

"You shot one while we were escaping and his wound became infected. The other went hunting in the woods, it got dark…I think he fell. By the time I went to look for him…he was dead too." Tosh was putting on an Oscar worthy performance, there were tears in her eyes and on her cheeks as she glared up at the spheres accusingly, "I buried them myself."

"A resilient little human."

"I don't want to die so I must be resilient," Tosh looked around at the other spheres, "But my being resilient won't stop you killing me. So can we cut to the point please? Just get it over with." Tosh closed her eyes, ready for them to shoot her.

"We shall not kill this one. We need 'resilient' people in or camps. Take her to camp four. I will report to the master immediately." The lead sphere moved away from Tosh and then sped up into the sky, heading for wherever the Valiant was. The remaining spheres moved in even closer to Tosh.

"Walk."

Tosh did so, looking back over her shoulder one last time, seeing Owen and Ianto one last time. Owen couldn't move, he was frozen where he was, holding Ianto still, watching the woman who had just saved their lives walk willingly into captivity. It was only when they could no longer see Tosh or the spheres that Owen moved, releasing Ianto and leaning on the doorframe for support.

"Shit."

"We should have helped her!" Ianto shouted angrily at the other man.

"And get captured ourselves?" Owen asked, storming back into the pub, "We couldn't have done anything."

"We can go after them, get her back," Ianto rushed to the weapons resting on the bar. Owen grabbed him once more, biting back a cry of pain as Ianto struggled.

"No! What happened to the calm and rational Ianto? We can't do that, we'd all be killed!" Owen snapped, giving Ianto a jerk to emphasise his statement.

"We've got to do something!"

"We will but like you said before we have to think first," Owen said, gently turning Ianto in his arms, gripping one arm tightly while gently using his other hand to cup Ianto's cheek, "We think and then we act."

"What's there to think about?" Ianto asked, "They've got Tosh."

"They said she was going to Camp Four. We can hack into the Master's computer network and find out where this camp is. We'll gather information and then when we're ready we'll rescue Tosh and maybe some others. Do some good!" Owen said calmly, a complete role reversal of when they first arrived at the pub.

"But Tosh…"

"Tosh can take care of herself, we've just seen she can convincingly lie for England and she's had Torchwood survival training. She'll be ok while we organise our prison break," Owen stroked Ianto's cheek gently, not even thinking of what he was doing, "Ok?"

"O-Ok," Ianto said, surprised by Owens behaviour but not against it. Human contact. Except for the three of them sharing body heat on cold nights, pushing their mattresses together in front of the fire to create one big bed, this was the first human contact he'd had since Jack. "You still want that coffee?"

"I'm going to need more than one. I'm going to start on our plans," Owen smiled softly and then with one last stroke of Ianto's cheek he moved to the bar and sat on one of the high stools and got to work on the laptop. And so Ianto, rubbing the tingling feeling out of his cheek as he went, went into the kitchen to make one coffee and one tea. Tosh's mug went back onto the shelf.

Owen couldn't take it any more, lying in the fire lit room listening to Ianto sobbing into his pillow, trying and failing to be quiet. Sitting up smoothly Owen slipped out of his bed, the cooler air bringing Goosebumps out on the skin not covered by his t-shirt and boxers. Walking quickly he crouched by Ianto's mattress and pulled back the covers slightly, revealing Ianto's tear streaked face.

"Owen? What are you doing?" Ianto asked, rolling over to completely face Owen in the flickering firelight. Using a shaking hand he wiped his cheeks quickly.

"Getting into bed with you," Owen replied doing just that.

"Why?" Ianto asked.

"Because I don't want to hear you cry yourself to sleep again," Owens blunt answer accompanied his arms going around Ianto and pulling him in until the Welshman's face was pressed into Owens chest.

"I thought you were asleep," Ianto mumbled, "I always waited…"

"I heard you. It takes me a while to drop off. You cried when we first got here, then you stopped. But the thing with Tosh…you've cried every night since haven't you?" Owens hands had begun to rub Ianto's back soothingly.

"I-I don't deal with guilt well," Ianto mumbled into Owens shirt.

"Guilt?" Owen asked, "For what?"

"Surviving," Ianto looked up at Owen, "Lisa, Jack, Gwen and now Tosh…why was it Tosh that was taken? Why was it Gwen that died? Why did Jack leave us? Why did Lisa have to die? Why did she survive in the first place? Why…?"

"Why did any of this happen?" Owen asked, hugging Ianto in tight, "You've got to stop thinking like that Ianto or it'll go down hill from there. Lisa was not your fault; it was the Cybermens. Gwen wasn't your fault; it was the spheres and the Masters fault. And Jack…well he's Jack." Ianto was shaking in his arms now. "There is no guilt in surviving Ianto, the only guilt we could be allowed to feel is if we survived and then did nothing to help those in need."

"Is that what you really think?" Ianto asked softly.

"It's what I try to think," Owen answered. Ianto didn't say any more, just snuggled in closer to Owens side and soon both men were sound asleep.