I was wrong. There was more. Because little children don't stay little children – they grow up. And my one-shots rarely remain as one-shots.

Thank you to all my reviewers: NikkieSheepie, Ravenja70, Marian Locksley, L.A.H.H., EternaldeviL, gernumblies, FanGirl moment xD and gaia-x-goddess.

WARNING: This story is like stepping stones in the mist. I don't know where it's going. I don't know where it's going to end. I'm following a little black-haired girl skipping down a woodland path, and if I lose sight of her, or the trail peters out, then so will the story.

Letters to Nowhere

Jack came back. He always came back.

He wandered back to Torchwood, like driftwood on the morning tide. He thought they might need him. They didn't - at least not anymore than Torchwood ever needed an extra hand - but they welcomed him all the same. They knew who he was – they'd read the reports. And a man who couldn't die was quite helpful to have on your side.

In less than six months, he was back in charge.

And because he's Jack, and he can't stay away, he loves them, the same way he always learns to love his team. To love them and then to lose them. The same way it's always been.

But this time it's different. He's decided to remember. He feels it's the least he can do; to remember all those who died by his side. So the new Hub, as they still call it, incorporates the old in more than just a name. A whole wall of names and photographs: all of Jack's old team, and the team before that, the death toll from Canary Wharf – everyone who has ever given their lives in Torchwood's service.

But he cares for those left behind too. His Welsh children, as he likes to call them. David and Mica and little Bronwen. Not much, but he keeps an eye out for them. Just as he promised.

He never fully unravelled the secrets of Bronwen's past. The archives held practically nothing on the issue, only the death certificates and the reports from afterwards. No one seemed to know what had happened, but Jack could tell that there was more too it than just a simple Torchwood death. Gwen had been keeping secrets from her team.

He thought he understood what Alice had meant. Gwen was strong, and not easily manipulated, but she, unlike him, would always put her family first. And if you held her child… well, you had Gwen in the palm of your hand. And there were plenty of incongruities in the reports of her final few weeks in charge – things which Jack was quick to pick up on after so many years running Torchwood himself. Missing documents, missing artefacts… and the Rift readings made Jack feel decidedly uneasy. Something was very very wrong. But unless Bronwen knew and wasn't telling, the secret was staying buried for ever.

He didn't visit Alice again. She had asked him not to come back. She'd finally managed to find herself a new family, and he could well understand why she didn't want him around. But he still saw Bronwen – a little black head haunting the small churchyard that housed her parents' empty graves.

She must have been about seven then, a scrawny little thing who had lost the chubbiness she had had as a younger child. She still gave the impression she had the first time he had seen her in the garden – a little darting bird, silent and wary.

Her little bunches of hand-picked garden flowers, tied together with scraps of string or hair, put Jack's huge spilling bouquets of roses to shame.

Sometimes there were grubby notes tucked in as well. It was a long time before Jack dared to read one.

dear mummy and daddy

At scool i learn sign talk. I like it. Miss Stanley says i am good. Alice lerns it two but i am better.

we made a cake. i left you a bit. it has chocolate in it.

lots of love

Bronwen

Jack smiled down at the laborious scrawl – trust a child of Gwen and Rhys' to be able to spell 'chocolate' before she could spell 'school'.

He reads them every time after that: dear mummy and daddy… we had a play at school. i was a anjel… Alice and me went to see granny… the docter said my ears are not any gooder… dylan kikked me… we made buns…

One day he puts pen to paper and writes her one back. He feels guilty, but he also knows that it's what Gwen would have wanted. She would have been happy that her child was still receiving her love.

It wasn't long before he started adding in stories and photos, both of Rhys and Gwen, and, later, of the others. But although he briefly mentioned a certain Captain Jack Harkness, no photos of him ever appeared.

dear Mummy and Daddy

Miss Stanley told me about gardiun angels. i said you sent me is tall with a blue cote. when I was little he visited me and Alice. is he from you?

lots and lots of love from Bronwen

Jack, biting his lip, said that he had been left to look after her. In a way it was true.

dear Mummy and Daddy

is heven nice? Mrs Stanley says it is very nice with lots of angels and gold and all the best food even really big chocolate cakes. Alice says i must not make really big chocolate cakes becaus they are bad. Alice is meen. i said you would yet me make really big chocolate cakes and she said no. but you would say yes becaus you are nice.

Bronwen xxx

Jack disagreed with that one, and told her she should do what Alice said and eat lots of fruit and vegetables. He even related a story Gwen had told him, about how when she was little she'd eaten all her birthday cake before her parents woke up and had been sick all through her party. The questions on heaven he passed over. But there was only one letter he could never bear to answer:

dear Mummy and Daddy

Alice says you died because you love me. that was mean. Dylan says his parents love him and his mummy and daddy are not in heaven. so why are you in heaven?I think you should come back and we should live with Alice and make nice cakes and see aliens because it is not fair that you are in heaven and you did not take me to.

Love and kissses

Bronwen xxx