Perhaps I should repeat the disclaimers – I don't pretend to own or even understand Jack, Ianto, Owen, Gwen, and Tosh. But I'm about to give them something to think about and a couple of them an experience like nothing they've ever had. Hope they like it. And I hope Russell and Starz don't mind. Oh, and just for this storyline, please imagine Cardiff Castle to be a little bigger than it actually is…just humor me. The finale, which is coming in the next chapter or so, should make it worthwhile.

And Jack was right. Fern had been thinking long and hard while she seemed to be asleep back at the hub. She, too, saw how every one of the warriors had her silver hair, her green eyes, her strong-boned physique, just in a male and clearly alien form. And she knew that somehow, she knew the answer why, but it took all night to finally grasp at a glimmer of memory that would open up an entire piece of her life that had been hidden from her. What she couldn't even guess was that Jack already knew a good deal about that missing piece, about this Doctor he'd asked about. It was time for her to sort it out.

Her memories were beginning to return and grow in validity. She was sure that before coming to Wales she had travelled for a long time through space. The ship wasn't like anything from science fiction or fact – it was alive. She knew this because its pilot – a lanky man with brown hair, deep brown eyes and a nearly-Welsh way of speaking told her so. He took her to a planet and they landed. And sure enough, it was populated with the very warriors that were now inhabiting Cardiff Castle. They evidently lived on another of many rifts in time and space and on it they had constructed something like a ziggurat in the center of their somewhat primitive city. The Doctor led her into it, stealthily, and they found a room at the center that held modern machinery that was alive with light and sound. The silver-haired people discovered them in their "holy-of-holies" and took them captive.

What happened next is beyond anything that has ever happened on earth, even in the rift-affected areas. An entire population, affected by the excessive energy let loose as the machinery collapsed, went thru a genetic transformation. Anyone who was there became a silver-haired, green-eyed, larger-than-life warrior, or a brown-haired, brown-eyed, quiet, lanky peacemaker. They became instant enemies, unlike their progenitors, Fern and the Doctor.

The rest is another story, and Fern couldn't remember anything beyond that until waking up on a boat in Cardiff Bay with a man of extreme beauty lying dead beside her. Since the rift machinery on that distant planet was destroyed, the Doctor was very worried, and he took responsibility for sending her to Torchwood 3 because he knew if anyone could take back control of time itself, it was Captain Jack Harkness. And Fern. Whom he had trained carefully before hiding her memory from her so she would not run in fear before performing one essential task.

Her memory of that task came to her that night as she lay recuperating on the couch in the Hub. And she looked around her and saw the identical machinery to that in the ziggurat. She wished she could talk to someone, someone who would understand what she was about to do. But she couldn't know that Jack was immortal and would have been the best person to open her heart to. She'd even seen him come back to life, but didn't know it. Like most people, she re-interpreted his revivals and assumed he was only 'almost' dead.

So when the Torchwood team turned and saw she was awake and feeling better, she knew it was time to get away, before they could read the urgency in her eyes and suspect she was going to do something dangerous, foolish, and utterly necessary to save the fabric of time.

And in her heart of hearts, there were not one but two men she had fallen in love with, and she couldn't let them down. She felt like that was a slightly corny thought, but she needed it to get motivated. This was going to be very difficult.

So when she rushed from the hub and made her way with greatest speed to the castle the doors were opened to her. She entered and barely had room to stand among the crowd of roaring, restless and irritable warriors. But they parted and made way for her to go to their leader on a small dais on the far side of the cramped space.

She faced him and they exchanged words. The men roared again in approval and banged on their shields with their barbed swords. Fern knelt down and bowed her head. The leader raised his sword above her and…

Meanwhile, Jack lifted his head when he heard the roaring cheers. This couldn't be good. He started to clamber up the steep hill towards the doors, now unguarded, but before he could get there, a pillar of light rose from the roofless castle into the sky. Even though it was a clear, star-filled night, he could not see where it ended – he used his wrist band to try and calculate its trajectory and possible target, and shook his head when he saw the results. Vulduria? A planet many galaxies away from where he was standing. He knew nothing of the place but its name, and had no clue as to what this pillar of light meant, except generally when that kind of energy was generated, big things happen.

And happen they did. The pillar reached to the damaged rift manipulator in the ziggurat at the center of the 'holy' city on Vulduria. It repaired it and drew every last warrior back to their home. And then it was extinguished.

About that time Jack finally made it to the castle doors and didn't like the silence inside. The parapets were empty as well. He pried open the unlocked doors and looked inside, fearing the worst.

In the moonlight his fears were realized. The threat of the aliens was gone, but there on a stone platform on the far side of the space was a crumpled body, a woman with silver hair and steam rising from her as if she had been…burned? No, as he moved closer to her, there was no visible harm. He touched her shoulder then turned her so he could see her face. She looked like she might just be sleeping, but when he placed two fingers at the base of her neck, he felt no pulse, and he leaned his ear to her lips and felt no breath.

He rested his head on her chest for a moment, wishing a heartbeat to return, but when he turned his torch on to look at her more closely, he could see she was already turning blue, the cyanotic color of death. He gathered her up gently in his arms, remembering faintly that she had done the same for him, and walked back to the SUV to return to the Hub.

How can this be? Is Fern dead? Weren't there some romantic moments between her and both Ianto and Jack? What's up with that? Watch for more chapters - I'm on a roll!