Chapter Two

The simple fact was that Allen was dead. There was no going back in time to change it. Cy numbly placed her keys on the kitchen table of the tiny high rise, a purr against her leg shocking her slightly. She petted her tabby cat. "Hey Barty," she managed, still not used to the silence. It had been almost a year, but that didn't mean he was any less dead than he'd been that horrible afternoon either.

Her cat let out a meow, jumping up on the table, nuzzling against her cheek. "You miss him too, huh?" she continued. Talking to a cat like he understands every word. They'll call you crazy.

She drummed her fingers on the table, her head pounding with what had happened. Torchwood. She'd finally accessed the Saxon file. Her father. Prime minister. There wasn't much, just brief diagnostics, mostly an assumed date of birth, and date of death. August 28th, 2005. Exactly three months to the day before she was born : "a wailing child with a medical defect" her uncle had said.

All his fault. Her father's. She'd stared at the smiling face, trying to analyze the dark eyes. She looked nothing like her father, except for her dark eyes, and smile. Her hair was a dark bright auburn, often showing her temper.

Ianto had told her that probably she was a true half-bred, as Gallifreyan she wouldn't have had red hair. When she asked how he knew and what exactly "Gallifreyan" meant, Yan just shrugged, telling her cautiously to not ever speak of Saxon to Jack, however when Cy asked why, Yan just shrugged and scuffled off to make coffee.

Cy sighed, opening her laptop, and for what was probably the hundredth time this month, typed in her father's name. Harold Saxon. Mum always did say he had a different name that he would never speak to her. Said she couldn't pronounce it.

But then, she'd said he was an alien as well. And even when Cy was only eight, she somehow believed her mother.

Rubbing her forehead, she continued to read the amateur article. It was merely the fact that he had tragically died after only one month in office. No new information. Just the facts that Downing Street had been rebuilt, he'd been aboard Valiant when the President of the United States died, and afterwards, he himself. By his wife. Cy blinked, reading the article again.

Nothing of Torchwood's top secret file that Harold Saxon was the last of two aliens of an obscure race. From what planet, she wasn't sure, for some reason she thought it was Gallifrey, but there was no logical reason why. She'd never read that name anywhere.

Sighing again, Cy petted the cat who'd settled in her lap, closed the computer and went to bed.

In the absentmindedness of her exhaustion, she reached across the queen bed as though to reach for someone that should be there, but the bed was cold and empty…

Al, whaddya say we go to Sydney?

We've got months til' the honeymoon luv, we'll decide later. Grinning down at her with a calming smile.

Knowing you, Al – you won't plan until the night before. Giggling up at him, her face upturned for a kiss.

Heh. As always. Why plan when you can live?

I need a bit of stability, Al, you know that. Sometimes I don't know if you're coming home at night.

Sometimes I don't either.

Why don't we sit down. Patting the seat next to her. You look awkward standing up.

It happened to fast for him to reply, and though Cy was told repeatedly that he suffered no pain, and the death was instantaneous, something in her mind still believed he died in her hands, his head clutched in her hands, his eyes staring at the nothingness of time and space.

Cy hadn't talked to many people since before she met Al, and she talked to even less after.

The net loaded properly, she read the first article that came up. American. The usual information, then:

...Lucy Saxon shot her husband during an apparent psychotic break, which caused her to be placed in Albion Psychiatric Hospital for the rest of her life.

There were only a few witnesses to this assassination, and it is still unknown at this time who assassinated the President-Elect.

USA Today. Almost twelve years ago. An anniversery edition of past events. It seemed to be an easily enough covered up article, though Cy was quite sure the Americans would have demanded an investigation.

It said nothing of who was on board. Cy reached for the jewel on the kitchen counter. It was an ordinary pendant, looking almost like a medallion, colored like the eye of a tiger. She rubbed the gem itself, noting the ornate carvings around its setting.

Time Lord.

She could almost see the scene in her mind, her mother seizing the pistol, and shooting him, falling to the floor backwards, writhing in pain. While everyone stood by or fled, too busy to notice as he suffered in death.

Cy knew the statistics of what dying by a gunshot wound felt like. Closing her eyes tightly, and blocking out the sound of the honking horns on the street below, until only the dull thudding in her mind was audible.

Fire burning through his chest. Feeling like his guts were being ripped from his body. Lolling backwards, writhing and gasping for any oxygen to his burning lungs.

Her eyes flashed open. Where was the body? She'd never seen his grave. Nothing.

Her father was an elected official he had to be buried somewhere. Right?