Author's Note: Finally back from my business trip. Boy, was that trip stressful and difficult! I'm gonna post up the next chapter, just so you guys can go ahead and read it. I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with it, but I'm too fatigued to do anything about it.

Enjoy.


Ianto had been in the hub, alone, monitoring levels of rift activity, when the sound had echoed through the chamber. A mechanical sound of engines that he recognized.

He spun around, just in time to see Seo's ship appear on the floor of the hub, right next to him.

"Seo?" he called.

No answer.

For a few seconds, there was just silence.

Then the door opened, and Seo stepped out. Holding a piece of coral in her hands — one hand sloppily bandaged, the other white as she gripped the coral firmly.

"So… it is true," Seo whispered. "I don't even need this to be connected into the rest of the ship for it fly. Everything's being channeled through me. Wirelessly."

There was such a dejected, hopeless look on her face, Ianto couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

Especially when she looked up, fixing those wide brown eyes on him. And he could see all the pain she felt inside.

"I always thought… whatever my father did… he still used my original design," Seo confessed. "The technology I'd wired in. But he didn't." Her eyes turned back down to the coral. "Jenny's right. I am useless."

Ianto took Seo aside. Sat her down. Then turned to the tea machine, to make Seo some tea. "Jenny never said that, you know," he assured her, pouring it into the cup.

"No, she just proved it," Seo said, with a shrug. She put down the coral so she could take the tea from Ianto and sip it. "I mean, look at her! She's about as old as I am, but she's so responsible and grown up! She knows everything, understands everything, has the patience to do actual research and know what she's talking about, doesn't need supervision all the time…!"

"You said… she didn't have anyone else," Ianto reminded Seo, softly. "No other family."

Seo didn't answer.

"If she was born from a machine, fully grown," Ianto said, "abandoned by her father just after she was born... that means she's been on her own a long time." He gave Seo a kind look. "I think she's had to learn a lot of things and become very responsible very quickly."

Seo stared down at her tea. "I guess," she said. Pouted. "But she's still… I mean, she's just… so much better than me. At everything!"

"You're saying that because she happens to know things you don't," Ianto pointed out. "Everything you do know — about Earth, about family and friends, about living a normal life — that terrifies her. She has no idea how to act."

Seo's eyes met Ianto's. "Really?"

Ianto smiled. "Absolutely," he said. "And what's more—"

They were cut off by a sudden roaring sound tearing through the hub. A wind rushed up as if from nowhere, and when Seo and Ianto turned, they saw a ball of bright light emerge in the center of the hub.

"What…?" Seo asked.

Then the air around them gave a howl, and cracked open. Reality splitting apart and splintering around the light, opening to reveal the swirling colors of the vortex itself.

The portal sucked at everything inside the hub. Dragging it forwards, into its gaping maw. Every item it fed upon only making it bigger, widening the breach.

Ianto darted for the computer. Typing, frantically. "I think I can isolate its feed," he said. "Use the manipulator to cut it off at the source."

Seo wasn't listening.

She was just staring at this crack that had opened in reality. Staring at it as if caught in a trance, unable to move.

"Seo?" Ianto asked.

No answer.

Ianto turned back to the computer. Looked like this was just down to him, then. He tried to hang on so he wouldn't be sucked through the gap, but frantically reconfigured the mainframe of the Rift Manipulator. Tapping into the programs Tosh had created, back when she'd been alive.

There!

Perfect!

The manipulator activated, pulsing with mechanical energy.

Just as a shape appeared into existence, at the far end of the hub. A tall blond girl, in military fatigue, hair up in a ponytail.

"Ianto!" Jenny called.

Then she took in what had just happened. The rift manipulator, beginning to churn into life, sparks flickering across its surface. And the coral in Seo's grip seeming to react to the manipulator, giving off a faint glow and an irritated sounding hum.

"Oh, no," said Jenny. Terrified eyes turning to Ianto. "You can't do that! The TARDIS coral, the portal, and the manipulator will react to one another! Set off a chain reaction!" She raced forwards. "You don't know… what…!"

Then she slowed.

And stopped.

Her eyes fixed on that tear in reality, unable to look away. As if it had somehow entranced her, as well.

But she was right. Ianto could see that, now. Could see the energy arching back and forth from the coral to the manipulator, creating a spinning sort of transparent bubble in the center point between them. Directly in front of the portal.

Ianto didn't even realize he'd loosened his grip.

Not until it was too late.

Found himself spinning through the air, slamming directly into the bubble. Swallowed up by it. The force of the impact making his head spin, his vision go dark.

The last thing he saw was the bubble being pulled inside the portal.

And then he passed out.


Jenny snapped out of the trance, first. The moment the bubble had dragged Ianto inside, swallowed him up within the Vortex.

"Seo!" she screamed, stumbling towards the computer terminal. "Help me out, here!"

Seo started out of her reverie. Realizing, in horror, what was going on. "Ianto?" She jumped to her feet, stumbling, barely able to resist the winds sucking everything into the vortex.

Except… the winds were dying down.

The crack in reality had already begun to close. And as Jenny managed to reach the computer, a smile spread across her face. "He did it!" she cried. "He actually worked out a way to close it! He…!"

Jenny didn't notice until it was too late.

What Seo was actually doing.

Seo grabbed up the piece of TARDIS coral. Tucked it beneath her arm. "Have to get him back," Seo said, racing forwards, towards the closing gap in reality. In a gigantic leap, she launched herself through it.

She disappeared into its depths.

The gap swirled shut behind her.

Jenny stared. Her breath coming fast. "No," she said. "Oh, no. No, no, no."

Knew exactly why Seo had done what she did. And it was all Jenny's own stupid fault! Jenny had been the one to hypothesize that Seo could traverse the vortex without any kind of capsule at all. She'd been the one to plant the idea in Seo's mind!

"You can traverse it, but you can't exit it!" Jenny shouted at the air. "That's what the ship-part is for! Without that… your protection would wear off… and you'd just… be…"

She didn't want to say it.

Ianto would be protected a little longer, Jenny guessed, inside that bubble. But even he would be disintegrated, soon enough. His atoms scattered across time and space.

And Seo wouldn't save him! She'd get herself killed, get Ianto killed, and all for nothing!

Just because Jenny had said something stupid!

"It's my fault," Jenny said. "This is all my fault!" She turned, irritated with herself, stomping her feet against the ground. "Why did you have to brag about how clever you were, Jenny? Why couldn't you just have left well enough…?!"

Then her eyes fell on Seo's ship.

And Jenny realized… she knew exactly what to do.


Jack entered the hub, first. Running fast as he could. "Yan!" he shouted. "Ianto!"

Ianto wasn't there.

All he found was a hub in chaos, and Jenny darting in and out of Seo's ship, fast as she could. Her face bent in intense concentration.

"Where is he?" Jack demanded. Trying to keep the shaking from his voice. "Where… where's…?"

"Swallowed up by the vortex!" said Jenny, disappearing into Seo's ship, again. "Along with Seo."

Jack rushed over. "No," he said. "No. He couldn't… they couldn't…!"

His heart was breaking. Shattering into millions of tiny shards, each one shattering even more with every breath he took.

"I'm working on it!" Jenny called back. "Don't lose hope, yet! I'm brilliant!'

He saw her, inside of Seo's ship. She was hooking up his vortex manipulator into the internal wiring, frantically making adjustments and intermittently smacking things with a spanner.

"There were two time machines," Jenny explained, as she went about her work. "The one Seo built, and the one Dad put in, instead. She took the TARDIS coral with her, but with your VM, her lash-up should still work." Jenny grabbed up a bit from beside her, wiring it in. "Or… it'll atomize me the moment I dematerialize. Hard to say which."

Words escaped Jack.

As he just stared at Jenny.

"There!" said Jenny. Shoving at levers, poking at buttons, the whole machine whirring into life.

Jack stepped back, as a wind whipped through the hub.

"I'll be coming back with them!" Jenny called through the open doors, as the ship faded out of sight. "Promise!"

And then she was gone.

Jack frozen in place, as he realized… he might never see any of them ever again.