Chapter 5: Exuent Omnes (All Go Out)

Pompeii. That's where he would start. It wasn't the most important event in time (at least to him anyway) but it would be a good warm-up. He remembered how Donna had reacted when she had found out that they couldn't save all those people from the volcano. He would do this for her.

"No one to stop me now, Donna. Look at that – I'm doing just what you wanted for a change." He muttered as the TARDIS landed and all the noise inside just stopped. He paused in the doorway briefly before throwing open the doors. Thrusting his hands in his pockets, he stepped out into the cool, morning air.

"Nothing like a volcano eruption to set your mind straight." Again, he was talking to himself but who was there to talk to now? He was all alone...again.

"Now then," He checked his watch, "Eight hours and counting. How to mobilize an entire city in eight hours?"

He walked through the Roman streets looking around. Surely he could find a cultural clue. And what did he learn last time he was here that could help him now?

Being a Time Lord, he had an impeccable memory. Most other species would have forgotten a lot of the little details of the event – it was just one more thing that made him better than all the rest.

"Of course!" He yelled, as his own maniacal thinking had led him to an answer. Superstition – all the people here had been, no, were highly superstitious. Maybe if he could work a little so-called magic with his brilliant mind and his futuristic technology then they would follow him right off this island and to safety. He'd save Pompeii...and he'd do it for Donna Noble.

And no one was here to stop him.

Of course, he had to be careful not to cross his own path and he had to counteract everything the other him was doing but he was sure that he could even outthink himself if he really tried.

He was, after all, the ultimate winner.


Where had Gwen heard of that before? "Where is that?" She was fishing, she knew that, bu tshe had yet to find out if she trusted this girl.

"The Medusa Cascade – does it really matter? Ianto and I came back because we have a job to do so I thin there are more pressing issues than my personal profile, if you don't mind. Someone has been changing time – and that can't happen...it's very, very bad news when it does."

"But how can you tell You never told me – just that it happened." Ianto, unlike Gwen, already trusted the Captain, after all, she had given him no reason not to while they were trapped in Limbo. Not to mention, she had helped him escape and, even if it had been unintentional, had helped him return to Cardiff and had reunited him with at least a portion of his team.

"I can," she paused wondering how she was going to explain this to the humans. "I can see time – the past, the present...the future, too. Well, so to speak. And some points in time are fixed – they are so important in the vast scheme of things, so important to the universe and have such an impact on the whole of time that they can't be changed. But you see, that's the problem because someone or something has changed one and I could feel the ripple and the effect of that all the way in Limbo, in another dimension. And that's not good."

They sat in silence, watching the waves on the bay and listening to the wind blow by. Gwen and Ianto had been around alien situations enough to know that this sort of bad news meant really bad news.

"So then...what now?" Gwen had let her distrust of the young woman go for the time being. If what she was saying was true, and there had been no proof otherwise, than there were much more pressing issues at hand.

"We need to find my ship...and your Captain Jack Harkness. Am I correct in assuming that he took off after the thing with the 456?" Gwen just looked at Ianto and nodded sadly. It wasn't her fault but it didn't stop her from feeling guilty, especially since she had to break the news.

"He couldn't take it – Ianto's death...and his grandson's. He blamed himself for the whole thing."

"Typical human reaction – that egocentric view. 'It's all about me, it's all my fault. Blah blah blah.' Don't worry, mate. He'll snap out of it when he sees you." This was to Ianto.

"Now!" The redhead started again, not giving either of them enough time to comment on her human bashing. "My ship. I'm going to need your help."

"Is it even here on Earth? You did spend the last...how many years in Limbo?" Gwen asked, wondering why her ship would be here without her.

"One hundred and three but yes, as a matter of fact, my ship is here. If it had been any other planet, we'd be out of luck but aaah, good old Earth! My TARDIS defaults here if I set the distress signal – it's both a safety precaution and it helps me remember where I left it."

Both Gwen and Ianto hadn't heard the end of her sentence – one word stood out to them. Now Gwen Cooper knew where she had heard the word Gallifrey before.

"You're a Time Lord." Ianto stammered, beating Gwen to the punch.

The Captain's surprise at them knowing her species faded after a moment. "So you've heard..."

Gwen cut her off. "But the Doctor, he's supposed to be the only one left." Yes, Torchwood's file on Jack's mysterious friend had mentioned that quite a few times. Apparently one other Time Lord had popped up but had died shortly after, refusing to regenerate after his wife shot him. So the Doctor was left alone, again.

Or so they thought.

The Captain froze. She knew the Doctor. Oh, she knew him very well, in fact. Could he be responsible for something like this – changing fixed points in time? They had gone to school together and she had only seen him a few times since then but the Doctor she knew would never do something like this. If this had happened while back at the Academy, it probably would have been pegged on her rather than him. Yes, he did cause trouble but never like the sort she caused. She had always been beating heads with her teachers, he had just challenged them intellectually.

Still though, people change. Humans and Time Lords alike. She was almost positive that'd he'd regenerated since the last time she had seen him... maybe this new regeneration was the sort to not follow the rules.

"No one ever looks in Limbo." She muttered under her breath as she continued to dig around in her pockets looking for something.

"I should have known when I saw the sonic screwdriver...or when you started rambling about time in Limbo." At this point, Ianto was feeling a bit betrayed and a little bit angry at himself for not knowing sooner. This sudden realization explained a whole lot.

"It's not like I go around flaunting it. I'm an endangered species from what I understand. If I'm not careful, I could be hunted halfway across the galaxy and mounted on some rich bloke's wall. Don't be too hard on yourself." She didn't look him in the eye – it wasn't out of shame, no. She just didn't want him to see the fire that burned in her eyes. They'd have to act a lot quicker than she had anticipated if there was a Time Lord behind this...and she had an ever growing suspicion that there was.

"Aha!" At the discovery of the book she had been searching for, her demeanor changed. Suddenly, she the playful and energetic girl that Ianto had known in Limbo was back. "Here it is, I knew it was in there somewhere."

"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? That's your reminder? What goods a science fiction story from the 1800s going to do?" This was Gwen, starting to get a bit tired of the other woman's games and wishing that she'd just come out with it already.

The Captain didn't get frustrated or angry at the snappish tone – she just grinned. "I'll show you." She proceeded to flip through the book until she came to a dog-eared page near the end. Her eyes scanned the page quickly before she turned both the book and her attention towards her companions. "Fancy a trip to Norway?" She asked as her finger fell across a mention of Moskstraumen, also known as the Maelstrom.

"Let me get this straight..." Gwen tried to keep her voice level but her frustration was ever apparent. She crossed her arms so she wouldn't start waving them about like a mad woman. "You hid your ship... in a whirlpool? That doesn't even seem like a good idea!"

"Well," Ianto cut in before the Captain could respond. "It does make some sense if you think about it. Who is going to look there? It would be like hiding something in the Bermuda Triangle."

"You do not even want to know what's hidden down there that's causing all those problems. Trust me, I was there when it happened... oh, it's not pretty." The Captain had completely missed the point but Ianto was used to this. It only seemed like she hadn't gotten it but he knew she was too smart for anything to go over her head like that. A lot of times it seemed she played down her intelligence. Why, he couldn't guess.

"Exactly. I don't want anyone sticking their nose in my business. If I'm not going to be on my ship, I don't want to come back and find it hanging in a museum with tourists taking pictures of it and buying little plastic models. If that fell into the wrong hands... there are about 74 very, very bad things someone clever could do with it that would cause a lot, lot of problems for everyone."

Gwen took a deep breath and rubbed her temples. She felt like she was babysitting. "So if your ship is in the maelstrom does that mean we'll need a boat?"

"And someone to sail it."

"And quickly, if my feelings on the situation are correct...we're running out of time."