I Walk Alone - 10
Owen turned an unconscious Ianto over, checking his pulse and lifting an eyelid. "He's out cold. What the bloody hell's going on, Harkness?" He didn't even look up from his patient; Jack shook his head and turned away, running his fingers through his hair.
"Jack, please don't hold out on us." Gwen hadn't moved, her gaze trying to wrest an answer from her captain.
Owen stood. "No more secrets, Harkness. Don't you think there's been enough?" He stooped close to Jack so his words would not be audible to anyone else but the sentiment ruffled in the small space.
"We're a team, Jack." Gwen's words cut between the two.
The captain looked at them both. "It's not my secret."
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It's not my secret. The words seem weightless as Ianto drifted somewhere in between the seconds.
Jack. The young man's mind reached out but the captain seemed inaccessible in his awareness.
"He is a shadow stretched over time." A young woman, no older than himself approached through the many temporal layers. "Not fleeting like the others." She motioned to both Gwen and Owen with a sweep of her glistening arm.
Ianto found himself drawn to her. Her body flickering like a candle driving back the night; her eyes, magical orbs full of starlight, enticing him, guiding him toward the tender glow of her being.
She touched his face. "You are him, and us, and them, all things drifting, belonging nowhere and yet, to all things."
He grabbed the light of her hand and moved it to his head. "I feel you," he whispered without speaking, "here and…" he moved it to his heart "… here."
"We are linked by his blood and all that has gone before." She placed the shimmer of her forehead next to his, clasping his head in her hands.
"You are a TARDIS." Her presence galvanised his soul with knowledge.
"I am that which is within you and that which gave us both life." She pushed away, her shape becoming suddenly mottled and dim in a wave of shadows. "We are in pain, we grow too fast, I am moribund." She covered her face with her hands, turning away from the young man, her light fading.
Ianto moved into her aura, his fingertips brushing the fire of her hair. She turned and grabbed his wrist, healing its injury. "Come no closer for we are linked and a darkness surrounds me that will do you harm."
Her eyes yielded an amber glow that bore the universe in its gaze. "My nature is to protect that which is named for me, yet I fear my death will be used to hurt that which brought me to life."
"Then let me help you."
The TARDIS shook her head. "I am beyond help."
"No, there must be a way." Ianto reached for her arm, his grip catching the moonbeam of her presence, going beyond the shimmer of her outline to touch the universe and the bloom of its many secrets. His mind tore like a bullet through its fabric, targeting the latent knowledge of the Time Lords written into the cloth of every TARDIS.
He pulled her close, embracing her iridescent form and kissing her lips. She tried to pull back but the young man was persistent, deepening his kiss until she reciprocated and he felt her enter his body, binding them together in an eternal promise as old as the first explosion of stars. Ianto fell away, his heart racing beyond the confines of his chest.
She placed her hand upon his upper body, feeling the synchronisation of their being. "We are forever joined," she said sadly, "our strengths, our weakness are as one."
"I will save you," Ianto whispered softly into the glow of her ear.
She shook her head. "You are so young in time's framework it may not be within your power; you are only part Time Lord…"
He placed a finger on her lips. "As my father before me," he replied, owning the divide between them, "I also have the advantage of being part TARDIS."
Her eyes lifted to his and he basked in a fleeting smile until the pain overpowered them both and she withered into the waiting darkness.
Ianto awoke, startling Owen who was bent over his limp form. "Fuck! Take it easy; let me help you sit up."
"Owen…" Ianto began, trying to move away from the administrations of the other man.
The medic pulled him back. "For Christ's sake, let me do the doctoring, it's what I'm paid for…"
"Owen," Ianto tried again, shrinking back from the tender probing.
"Ianto…" Owen went to admonish the stricken man.
"O…" But the young man's warning was too late as he vomited all down Owen's front.
"Fuck."
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"Martha Jones, as I live and breathe!" Lucy strode toward the doctor, her hand held out in greeting. "So glad you could make it."
Martha ignored the offered hand and crossed her arms. "Not by choice."
Lucy continued to smile as she clapped her hands together. "Everyone, stop what you're doing, Hallmark moment here: it's Martha Jones." She spread her arms theatrically toward the young woman; blank looks were exchanged from the others in the Hub.
"You all remember Dr Martha Jones, don't you?" A few shook their heads. "Saviour of the Earth?" Lucy raised an eyebrow as she turned to her team.
"Anyone?"
Silence.
Lucy faced Martha again. "What, no one?" she continued, slapping a hand over her mouth in mock surprise.
A chorus of scattered 'no's' echoed around as everyone resumed working. Lucy smiled at the young doctor. "Wow, that must really suck."
"I did what I had to," Martha responded, glaring at the other woman.
"I did what I had to," Lucy parodied, picking a piece of lint off Martha's jacket.
"Why am I here and where's Jack and his team?" the doctor demanded, her expression remaining stoic.
"Oh, the freak? Don't you worry your pretty little head on his account, he's cooling his heels down in the cells, unchained I might add, although that might change later. And good, ole team Torchwood, well, sort of gonna put them on ice, cryogenically speaking, of course."
Martha kept eye contact as Lucy stepped into her personal space. "Who are you?" she asked, trying to look deeper into the other woman.
"Oh come on, Martha, has it been so long, don't tell me after all our cat and mouse games you don't recognise me?"
"Lucy Cole, once Mrs Harold Sax…" A finger pressed against her lips, silencing her answer.
"Oh, try again, surely you can see the real me beneath all this pomp."
It was the smile that did it for Martha, the smile and something that surfaced in the colour of the other woman's eyes. The doctor gasped. "I saw you die."
Lucy laughed. "Death is a sort of hazy thing for a Time Lord." She spun around. "So tell me, Martha Jones, is it me, do I not do feminine well?"
The doctor watched as the other woman ran her hands over her own body. "Where's the real Lucy Cole?"
"Oh, keeping me company in here." She tapped the side of her head; Martha grimaced. "'Till death us do part," Lucy added with a grin.
"I really don't think that's what she had in mind," the doctor answered.
"Oh, the humour, I think I've missed that most of all. The ministry is so full of stuffed shirts." Lucy looked to one of the accompanying guards. "Mobile?" she asked, holding out her hand.
He shook his head. "Nothing on her, ma'am."
Lucy looked back at Martha, raising an eyebrow; the young doctor smiled. "Dropped it last night, got crushed under the wheels of a fire engine, go figure."
Lucy narrowed her eyes. "Oh, how convenient. And they say the health service is safe in your hands."
"No, I think that was Margaret Thatcher, actually."
"Now there was a woman I could sink my teeth into." Lucy said with a wink. "Well, never mind, there are other ways to catch a Time Lord." She gestured to the juvenile TARDIS.
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"Ianto…" Gwen crouched down, rubbing his back; the young man knew what was coming.
He cut into Gwen's hesitation. "You didn't tell them?" He looked up at Jack who was stood facing the perspex, his fingertip tracing the loop of a smear.
Jack didn't look round. "It wasn't my place." He kept his body between the team and the prying eye of the camera.
Ianto glanced at Owen who was trying to wipe himself down with one of Gwen's economy tissues. "They have a right to know," he said, more to himself than those in the room.
Jack turned around and pushed back onto the transparent wall, crossing his arms; he conceded defeat with a nod.
Ianto met Gwen's inquisitive gaze. He smiled softly and let his lips brush her cheek in an appearance of gratitude. "He's my father," he whispered, his breath warm against her skin, "the Doctor."
Gwen nodded slightly, her eyes speaking in volumes of unanswered questions, but she remained silent. Instead she stood and walked over to Owen, offering him another tissue. He discarded the useless one he was endeavouring to utilize as Gwen softly muttered in his ear, her words carrying no sound in the confined space.
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Neil made his way quickly down the narrow Victorian street of the Royal Arcade. People milled around him, mostly window shopping under the glazed roof, which the sun's rays milked giving the limited space an almost tropical feel. He pulled at his collar, swallowing back the dryness in his throat while berating himself for wearing his suit jacket. An old woman, tugging at a burdensome, tartan, shopping trolley, offered a sympathetic smile as she shuffled passed in a chunky knit cardigan and overly red cheeks.
Neil pulled the receipt from his pocket and unfolded it, checking the name printed on the paper. He looked up, searching the amalgam of traditional and modern shop fronts paralleled along the covered alley until he found the jewellers shining in the additional light. He wiped the sheen of perspiration from his forehead and quickened his pace to the door, shouldering past a young mother with a pushchair without an apology. The woman glared at him with dark eyes and then attended to her howling baby, bending over the handles to reveal a butterfly tattoo on the sunburn of her left breast.
Neil's slick hand tired the handle but the door was locked. He stepped back, noticing the handwritten sign stuck to glass: 'Back in 10 minutes'. Down checked his watch with a frustrated sigh.
"Can I help you, sir?" A silky voice cut through his annoyance.
Neil turned into the absorbing stare of an older man who was stood close by his shoulder. He stepped away but the man did not release him from his piercing gaze, extracting an answer. "I've come to collect a pocket watch," Neil replied, almost stumbling over his words before adding, "for a friend."
The old man's stare never wavered, holding Neil's reflection in the many shades of its mahogany web as he held out the receipt in his defence. "Yes, I remember the timepiece, a Mr Jones brought it in I believe." The jeweller's voice was subtle enough to add a breath of chill to the humid air making Neil shudder.
"Shall we?" the man said amicably, gesturing to the door as he smoothed down the silk of his cravat.
Neil watched the movement, drawn to the glint from the dark sapphire set in the pin that held the material together. "But it's locked." His assertion fell like the weep of rose petals on a gentle breeze.
"Is it?" the man replied with a sardonic smile as the door opened with a creak of hinges.
Neil frowned. "But I thought…"
Again the man humoured him with a grin, lips creeping across his pale cheeks like a cloud across the brightness of the sun. Around them time drew breath, pausing between syllables as something drained the colour from the day, stilling the arcade of its restless natives.
Neil looked to the doorway, his hesitation sticking like a stylus caught in pitted vinyl while around him fate's turntable spun on the moment, going nowhere.
"Such an unusual timepiece," the man tempted, his words like honey from salted lips, "exquisite craftsmanship too, I doubt I'll never see the like of it again." He turned the snake of his stare upon Neil once more. "I do hope such a young man as Mr Jones appreciates what a rare and exceptional piece he has."
Neil looked down to the weight of the receipt but found he was holding a pocket watch in his hand. "Between you and I," the man whispered, so close, Neil could feel the pall of breath upon his cheek; it held a hint of sulphur, "I believe it would suit a more mature gentleman."
The timepiece faded into the lined paper and Neil looked to the entrance. "Shall we?" the man offered again in an amusing tone, "after all time and tide…"
Neil nodded and found himself smiling dutifully as he stepped into the shop.
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Lucy grinned at Martha never lifting her eyes from the young doctor as her fingers leisurely pressed at the keyboard. "Control. Alt. Delete. That should do it," she laughed as she pushed the final button, her stare glinting with an all consuming insanity.
Martha turned her head away, following the flame of light that shot from the coral-like TARDIS, through the Hub and up the water tower.
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The Doctor bent over the control panel fiddling idly with the black, Bakelite telephone attached amongst its many gadgets. He inserted his finger in the 'JKL' opening and spun the metal dial with considerable effort, watching the letters and numbers flick through the holes as he let go. He bit his lip; around him he felt the TARDIS's anxiety as she chiding him for letting Ianto stay on Earth. It was an empty rebuke, they both knew it, the boy was master of his own fate but her concern needed channelling and the Doctor had broad shoulders.
If he was honest, she was a constant worrier but this time it wasn't concern for a companion or for himself, it was different, it was deeper, after all Ianto was a product of them both.
Product: the word was analytical and cold; the Doctor ran his fingers though his hair, maybe, after all these years, he'd forgotten how to be a father.
It wasn't easy the first time around, the TARDIS echoed in his mind.
"No, no it wasn't, but I'm a different man now: much too self-absorbed, boarding on selfish really…"
She remained silent. The Doctor waited and then shook his head and turned his back to the console, leaning against it for support while he crossed his arms. Faces clouded his thoughts, the faces of all those who'd travelled the universe with him, each repeating his name with awe, fuelling the veneration he needed, the emotional support…
Needy Rose was right, scratch under the surface of his self-assured genius and there was a sad and lonely little man, drifting through eternity, trying to be noble, gallant and principled because he needed to feel indispensable in an ever shifting universe.
"Doctor." The faces faded as often as they changed but the look of devotion always remained and he needed that constant love and encouragement, that light, that support, although he'd never admit it.
Ianto's different.
Doctor nodded at her words, the boy had a way of cutting him to the raw bone, seeing beyond the pantomime of the Doctor to his closed and concealed soul. Oh, he had changed through the years, Ianto had remarked on it while a fish and chip supper cooled on their laps, how each regeneration always brought a different part of his personality to the forefront….
But he will always be able to see past that exterior façade of the Doctor won't he?
The Time Lord said nothing, turning instead to the console, tinkering with the inlay of switches and dials.
That bothers you doesn't it?
The Doctor shook his head. "No, why should it?" He continued adjusting the settings not looking from the control panel.
Because you've forgotten how to be you.
The Time Lord rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on now…"
What then?
"It doesn't matter."
It obviously does.
The Doctor looked into the column of light at the centre of the TARDIS; she knew the answer, she just wanted him to admit it to himself, to say the words out loud.
The Time Lord sighed. "I'm scared of being just me." He stopped fiddling and lent on his knuckles. "Satisfied?"
Why?
"Because it's not the Doctor." His voice fell to a reproachful whisper.
And yet that's all Ianto wants from you.
The Time Lord went to counter but a searing pain stripped his words. He fell forward, his body and mind stretching between two points as the second they were in expanded in its own time frame. The Doctor found himself torn in the precious moment between dematerialisation and re-emergence, a foot in each but existing in neither as the bubble grew around him. He gasped as his body tried to gain some awareness, his senses some grip in this swell of time, this non-existing instant between tick and tock. Everything seemed to duplicate in a slow shudder, the internal images ghosting over each other in psychedelic layers like a bad Seventies music video. The TARDIS tried to reset herself, to break away from the anomaly surrounding them but she was trapped in this cleft of time.
Before he passed out, the Doctor thought he saw the tears of another TARDIS glinting on the wield of time, and as they fell, Ianto was reflected in their glimmer.
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Ianto felt himself droop under Owen's gaze as the doctor checked his carotid pulse. "You're an unearthly colour but maybe that's normal," the doctor added, pulling his fingers away from the younger man's neck with a grunt.
Ianto rubbed the spot as Owen looked at the vomit stain down his t-shirt, exacerbated by the ragged scraps of tissue worked into the material. "You should have blotted," Ianto offered helpfully, the timbre of his voice gravelly with strain.
Owen held his gaze, tensing a little, reigning in the twist of his emotion. "You lied to us, again," he said softly, testing the difficulties between them.
Ianto kept eye contact. "I know," he whispered with a lonely sincerity.
Owen watched him for a moment, trying to see past the rip in Ianto's emotional mask. "Did we ever know you?"
"Did you ever want to?" There was no resentment in the young man's response, just a note of sadness.
Owen snorted. "That's not what I asked, stop dodging the bleeding question." His patience was a fragile cloth.
"Yes," Ianto answered, "this is not the boy I was, this is who I became." He channelled his focus to a hollow in the floor.
Owen rolled his eyes. "Enough with the Freud crap, Ianto, yes would have sufficed." He broke away from the younger man, looking again at his t-shirt. "Anything else I should know?" he asked, sniffing the mark and grimacing.
"You'll probably need to soak that shirt before you wash it, you might want to try a biological detergent that contains bleach."
"This? Oh mate, this is going in straight in the bin and then you're going to buy me another, a really expensive one - I'm thinking designer. Also, both, you and Barbarella over there, have a lot of explaining to do, so don't think this is going away anytime soon, you're not out of the woods yet, tea-boy." Owen flashed the younger man a smile but Ianto wasn't listening.
The doctor watched as the colour ran from the Welshman's eyes until they were cold, hard, marble. "Ianto?" Owen gripped his shoulder.
"We're in pain," the young man's voice was not solely his own, its inflection was duel and pitted in anguish.
"Jack?" Owen looked to where the captain was watching the two men closely in reflection on the perspex; both he and Gwen turned from their contrived conversation, moderating their pace for the camera.
Jack knelt in front of Ianto but looked to Owen. "What happened?"
Owen shrugged not relaxing his hold on the stricken man. "He said he's in pain."
Jack returned to the chalk of the Ianto's stare. "Ianto," he whispered gently squeezing his knee.
"Jack?" Ianto turned his bleached gaze to the captain. "Old man, wrong man, young man, out of time, time keeper, stealer, killer, waster …" The singular voice of the TARDIS twisted around them.
"Jack?" Ianto's voice cut through her tirade of words.
"What is it?" He kept his hand on the younger man, reassuring him.
"The Master's using her, hurting her."
"Tosh?" asked Gwen worried.
"No, a TARDIS." Soft particles of light filled Ianto's gaze, like a strip stream of stars.
"The Doctor's time machine?" Owen offered, carefully moving his touch to Ianto's neck.
Jack looked impressed; Owen gave him a pointed look. "What? I do read some of the reports and anyway, a time machine, must be pretty fucking awesome, right?"
"You have no idea," Jack answered as he turned back to Ianto. "The Master has the Doctor's TARDIS," he needed clarification.
The young man shook his head. "She's younger, not yet full grown…"
"She?" Gwen asked, casting her shadow over their group.
Ianto began to shiver violently. "We need to find that which gave us life." Again two voices spoke as one.
"His heart rate's erratic," Owen cautioned, feeling the wild pulse under his fingertips.
Jack held up his hand, silencing the medic's concern. "Do you mean the Doctor?"
"For fuck's sake, Harkness…" Owen warned, his glare frosty.
"We need to know what the Master's up to." Jack directed, his stare clashing with that of the medic's.
"At what cost, Jack?" Gwen asked.
The captain swallowed, pushing back the rage of his inner conflict, resigned to leadership. "Any," he replied, turning his attention back to Ianto. "Do you mean the Doctor?"
The young man fought for breath. "Yes." It was a laboured reply.
"The Master must have primed it with a biological imprint of the Doctor," Jack spoke more to himself than the others.
"You seem to know a lot about it," Owen observed with a certain amount of derision.
"Yeah," Jack replied cagily, giving nothing away but a soft smile.
Ianto's shivering became more severe. "Cold, so many stars burning, so much light lost in the darkness and the cold."
Jack sat down by the young man and tried to pull him from Owen but he was rigid and unyielding to the embrace. "What can you see, Ianto?" They turned to Gwen who crouched down and took the young man's hands in her own, rubbing them gently.
Ianto inclined his head slightly, experiencing the duality of sight the TARDIS offered; he was still in the cell, yet, he could see the colours of an expanding second.
"See?" Ianto looked to Gwen but he wasn't her he was focused on. "Him. We see him."
"Who, love?" Gwen coaxed.
"We see the Time Lord, the Doctor."
"Where?" Jack asked, not masking the alarm in his voice. Owen shot him a scolding look.
"Trapped in our pain," came the twin voices as the TARDIS severed its link.
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Neil held the small wooden box in his hand with great delight and a touch of reverence; it was a lot older than he had anticipated. He ran the pad of his thumb over the clean-cut design of the Marquetry flower inlayed upon the lid. His hand trembled slightly as his body coursed with excitement, impatient to open the box, to view its contents, to own the watch he so desired, but he knew he must curtail his enthusiasm in front of the jeweller. He stared at the brass plaque, letting the script of engraved letters form discouraging whispers in his mind. "T. Latimer, are you sure this is the right pocket watch?" His anxious voice cut against the resonate sound of the many clocks hung on the walls as he placed the box down the glass counter.
The man smiled that disturbing grin of his, while his eyes displayed a reptilian charm. "Oh, yes, sir," he remarked, "it threw us for a moment too, until, that is, we found the note." He pushed the watch toward Neil.
"Note?" Neil looked up; the man seized eye contact, pulling the soul from his body.
The jeweller's knotted finger reached across the counter and tapped the lid. "Yes, inside, very mysterious." The man's smile twitched a little. "I'm afraid my curiosity got the better of me - I sure your Mr Jones will fill you in on the fascinating details." Neil watched as the man's long fingernail scraped across the wood; for some reason his mind made mischief with the sound, casting shadowy images of a pauper's coffin and the buried undead twisting in their shrouds below newly dug sod.
Neil swallowed; trying to appear composed as he reached inside his breast pocket. "How much do I owe you?" he asked hurriedly.
The jeweller laughed, it was a glacial noise. "Tell Mr Jones it's on the house, so to say. The pleasure of working on such a fine piece was reward enough." The declaration was delivered with the proficiency of a trained thespian while the man's eyes held something deeply inauspicious.
Neil's hand hovered over the box while he fumbled for control against the jeweller's unsettling stare. "No payment?"
The man leant across the counter top; the assortment of clocks stopped their tally of the seconds and fell silent. "I am not a vindictive man, Mr Down, but those I work for are not so forgiving." The words were spoken in the gasp of time and vanished as it exhaled, as if they had never been expressed at all.
Billis Manger guided Neil's hand upon the box. "Why don't you open it up, sir? I'm sure you won't be disappointed."
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"He's disrupted time to capture the Doctor in its void." Ianto's voice was a quiet mummer in the grim cell. He breathed out, letting his heart attune to its own rhythm.
"Is that even possible?" Owen asked, his trainers tapping impatiently on the floor as he sat back, stretching out the kinks in his spine.
"A warp in time? Oh yeah, believe me, it is." Jack gave a wistful smile, ducking the look Ianto gave him by turning to Gwen.
"So, what does this Master want with the Doctor?" she asked, feeling the conspicuous eye of the camera on their little troop. She turned slightly, to block its view.
"Revenge?" Jack shrugged. "I bet he's pretty pissed the Doctor foiled his world domination plan…"
"Again," Ianto added wearily, trying to rub away the pounding in his head; the nausea was back but he suppressed the gag of bile.
"Again?" Owen asked, scuffing his toes into the floor.
"It wasn't the first time they'd locked horns," Ianto replied, sinking back against the wall. "In fact, they've been at it for years." He clasped his hands together, rolling his thumbs in thought as he stared into the perspex.
"Why?" Gwen asked looking between both Jack and Ianto; neither could give a decisive answer.
Owen sighed with annoyance. "Oh come on, Doctor good, Master evil, there doesn't always have to be some inherent cause, PC Cooper."
Gwen ignored Owen's jibe. "So what do we do, Jack?"
The captain drew a long breath trying to scavenge some other course of action than the one forming in his mind.
"We need to do something, Harkness." Owen's nettle pushed at Jack's tolerance. "I don't know if it's escaped your attention, but Tosh isn't back yet and I'm really sick and tired of this waiting crap." He picked at the loose rubber on the front of his trainer, rolling it, before flicking it across the chamber.
Jack placed his foot on the slab bench and pulled at the unfastened laces of his left boot. "We need to contact the Doctor," he whispered.
Gwen narrowed her eyes. "How is that even possible?" Her voice was louder than she had intended.
Jack looked at Ianto before answering, weighing the other man's silence. "Ianto's linked to this TARDIS the Master's brought with him and it's linked to the Doctor, it's like an open line…" He turned his attention back to tightening the lengths of acrylic.
"Except," Owen interjected, crossing his arms, "Ianto's not well enough to come to the phone right now…"
"I'll be fine, Owen." Ianto's gaze bypassed the doctor and rested on Jack; the captain nodded.
"Oh yeah, 'cos you look a picture of health at the moment, tea-boy."
"He'll be fine, Owen," Jack reassured.
"That's Dr Harper, unless you've forgotten, and if you want my medical opinion…"
"No!" Both men answered in unison, not breaking eye contact with each other.
"Fine, knock yourself out." Owen's accusing stare penetrated Jack, letting him know exactly who would shoulder the blame. He stood, yanking his trousers up before shoving his hands in his pockets.
"Jack, there has to be another option." Gwen's hand reached for his arm. "Look at him; does he look well enough to do what you're asking?"
Ianto blinked before Jack spoke. "The Doctor's our only chance at defeating the Master and, at the moment, unless you can come up with something else, Ianto's our only advantage." He spoke slowly, meeting Gwen's gaze halfway as he turned from the younger man.
She let her hold slip from his arm. "For how long, Jack? What if by doing this it exposes him to detection by the Master, you said he wants revenge…"
Jack closed his eyes for a moment swallowing against the spasm of his heartbeat. "Then we'll do all in our power to make sure that doesn't happen." He threw a glance at the camera.
"You do know I'm still sat here?" Ianto voice was but a flutter but its tone held substance.
Gwen turned her attention to Ianto, giving him a small smile. "Ianto, love, I meant no disrespect but at the moment you might not be capable …"
Ianto stood, endeavouring to keep on his feet. "Do any of you really know what I'm capable of?" His question was directed at all of them; silence flooded back, whispering on the shore of their uncertainty.
Gwen reached across to touched his shoulder. "No, we don't, but look at yourself, you can hardly stand." She kept her voice even and calm.
He held her gaze, curbing the thorny knot of his emotions. "I lived a year in hell, Gwen, and eluded this man who tired to take away everything that made us human. He stole the life from us and moulded it into a living nightmare and he'll do the same again unless we find away to stop him."
Ianto gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "I know the risks, I've lived with them all my life." He glanced across at Owen. "I'm tired of hiding."
Owen gave a deliberate nod.
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Neil found himself in the arcade, behind him the jeweller's door settled back in place as if it had shifted in a forgotten moment. People walked past catching themselves up in a blur of trailing colours as the seconds reset in a blink of an eye and time continued at its own pace.
Neil stood still, a disorientated point, fixed in the centre of a shrinking breach, unaware of the adjustments falling back into place around him. He exhaled a puff of air, anchoring himself into the present, existing once more in its mix of sunshine and shadows. He looked down at the gift bestowed on him, for even as reality bit into the haze of his mind he knew it was much more than a watch.
He looked back over his shoulder at the locked shop, trying to focus on the dregs of his memory that were withering in blaze of light.
He blinked and they were gone. All that remained was the watch and the revelation it would bring.
Neil looked at the box and smiled as he walked out into the sunlight, fumbling for his mobile. He hit speed dial and despite himself he began to whistle.