Title: Armageddon

Rating: T

Warnings: Major spoilers for "Utopia", "The Sound of Drums" and "Last of the Time Lords"; violence; mild language; allusions to rape (but I promise nothing explicit or graphic)

A/N: Hooray for another relatively speedy update! I'm writing the outlines for this out in a notebook right now and for some reason it's making it much easier to focus and type things up. That and having literally nothing better to do with my time while I sit here waiting for the fall semester to start in September.

Thanks so much to the reviewers! I appreciate it!

I'm not going to make promises on the next chapter being up as quickly as the last few because I may or may not be going to Georgia and if I do I won't have access to a laptop so aside from my notebook full of scribbles I won't be able to write. Still, I will try very hard to have it up within a couple of weeks.

Please don't forget to review!

Armageddon:

Part III: The Year of Hell

Chapter Twenty

Everyone immediately grew wary as the Master burst through the conference room doors with a huge grin on his face. It had been nearly two days since any of them had seen him except for glimpses as he whispered to guards in the halls. Something was going on, but they weren't sure what and none of them were particularly anxious to find out, especially not with that large grin plastered on his face.

"Good morning!" the Master exalted, throwing his arms in the air like he was celebrating. "Isn't it a lovely day? People cowering, the skies are thick smoke…" he inhaled sharply, "and I have a delightful surprise for my lovely captives! I think you're all really going to enjoy this!"

He paused for a moment, tilted his head and corrected, "Or maybe that's only me… I suppose we'll find out!"

The Doctor followed the Master's gesture toward the conference room doors and gasped when two more guards entered, dragging a beaten and bound man between them. He didn't recognize the man, but Jack nearly choked and tried to run at the new captive snarling "Owen!" in a desperate voice.

The captive – Owen – began struggling twice as hard whenever he spotted Jack, tugging at the hands that were holding him in place.

"JACK! Fucking hell, Jack!"

The guards held Owen back easily, his bound hands and obviously weakened state making his desperate struggles look pathetic. The Master stepped casually between the two shouting men – Jack was screaming insults at the Master while Owen just seemed content to use a long slew of swear words – and shot the laser at Owen's feet, only narrowly missing him.

"You son of a bitch!" Owen snarled at the Master, kicking out his feet and struggling even harder against the guards. It may have been because Jack hadn't seen Owen in such a long time, but he didn't remember the younger man swearing quite as freely as he was at that moment. He was barely articulate at all, just cursing at the Master and kicking viciously against his captors.

"Your friend seems to need a lesson in manners, Captain," the Master sneered in Jack's direction. Jack had to bite back a retort, feeling pretty sure that any wrong move on his part would be taken out on Owen.

Owen saw no need for holding back, however.

"You slimy bastard! You're gonna tell me about manners?" He was still fighting valiantly, though it was a wasted effort on his part and everyone – even Owen – seemed to know that. The Master rolled his eyes at Owen and motioned for the guards to let him go.

The second their hands were away from him, Owen darted toward Jack, stopped only by another warning blast from the Master's laser screwdriver. He stumbled and fell to his knees, struggling for a second before realizing he was in no shape to pick himself back up. The Master smirked and moved closer to him, towering over the injured young doctor and grinning mercilessly.

Owen looked up at him, his bruised and battered face contorting into a look of pure contempt. He dropped his eyes for a moment, studying the Master's shoes – he couldn't tell for sure but they looked expensive – and spat a blood-filled glob of spit at them. He grinned to himself whenever it splattered all over the shiny surface.

The Master's eyes narrowed and he slammed a hand into the side of Owen's already pounding head, but Owen didn't care. It was worth it.

"Scared of a little blood?"

The Master smirked and knelt so that he was level with Owen, snatching a handful of his dirty hair and dragging him up a bit.

"Not at all, Dr. Harper. In fact, I find it quite interesting try to gauge just how much blood you pathetic humans can leak before you're unable to survive… Shall we find out together?"

Owen looked ready to spit in his face, but the Master abruptly let him go and stood, turning toward his other prisoners with his large grin back in place.

"I've been working a way to properly punish you all for your last little escape attempt," he said, "pathetic as they are, they're becoming quite annoying. So I said to myself 'how can I show them that their inconvenient attempts to thwart me, while amusing, will no longer be tolerated?' and then, just two days ago the answer was delightfully dropped into my hands…"

He motioned toward Owen on the floor and Jack sat up a bit straighter, glaring at the Master.

"Don't you touch him," his voice was a deep growl and they could all hear the overt – albeit ultimately useless – threat.

The Master laughed, "A bit late, Captain," he said, "Your Dr. Harper has already been beaten to the point of unconsciousness twice. And yet he still insists on fighting back and screaming insults like a child."

"Fuck you!" Owen couldn't stop himself from yelling and the Master just shook his head.

"My point," he said, "Introductions, for those of you unfamiliar, this man is Dr. Owen Harper. Former medical officer of Torchwood, and, as I gather, a rather close friend of Jack here."

He smirked and then made another motion for the guards, who moved around the table and toward the Jones family. They grabbed Tish and dragged her away.

"No, stop!" Francine tried to jump up and grab her daughter back, but the guards only pushed her back down and held her and Clive into place while they watched helplessly as she was shoved onto the floor near Owen.

Tish drew her knees up to her chest where she sat, biting her lip and doing her best not to look at the Master at all. Owen tried to scoot closer to her, wishing his hands were free so he could put an arm around her to comfort her. He sent the Master another angry glare.

"Resorting to tormenting innocent girls?" he asked, "That's pathetic?"

Another harsh slap sent Owen's head spinning, but he turned back to face the Master, hate still burning behind his eyes.

"Now," the Master turned his back on Owen and Tish and stalked toward the Doctor, his eyes sparkling as he smiled down at the other Time Lord. The Doctor met his gaze apprehensively, uncertain about what was going to happen next, but know that he didn't want to find out. Next to him, Spencer stiffened, his jaw going taut as he averted his eyes from the Master.

"What I've decided to do, thanks to Dr. Harper's timely appearance, is be a bit lenient. We'll even make it a game! I could kill them both –"

"Don't you dare, you bastard! You BASTARD! Don't touch my daughter!" Francine was up again, her face contorted in fear and anger. The guards grabbed her arms and at the Master's distasteful sneer, shoved her back down into her seat.

"Tie her down," he ordered, "Miss Jones another interruption from you and I will most certainly kill your daughter." After Francine was taken care of once more, he turned back to the Doctor.

"As I was saying, I could simply kill them both, but where's the fun in that. So I'll let one of them live… But you have to choose who dies."

"No," the Doctor snarled, "I'm not choosing someone to die."

"Then they both die," the Master shrugged dismissively, turning toward his captives and lifting his laser screwdriver.

"NO!" The Doctor lurched forward, trying to grab onto the Master's arm to stop him. The Master paused, shaking the Doctor's grip loose and looking back at him.

"Well?" he asked, "Which one is it going to be? The Captain's dear, dear friend Dr. Harper or your other little pet's sister. A shame to kill such a pretty thing, really…"

"You sick bastard," Francine was sobbing, "you sick bastard…"

The Master's eyes were practically glittering, "Me? Hardly. You can thank Spencer for this little idea. I got it from his mind… He's already had experience in this area, haven't you, Spencey? Why don't you help the Doctor?"

Reid's lips were tight and he focused on the floor, trying not to think about the memories that were flooding his mind. The Doctor's hand was suddenly gripping his and he swallowed roughly.

"Leave him alone," he said, his voice hoarse, "I'll… I'll choose…" he hesitated again, his eyes on Owen and Tish mournfully. The minute seemed to drag on for hours.

"Pick me, Doctor," Owen's voice was soft, "It's alright. We're both gonna die if you don't. I won't blame you. I swear…"

The Master rolled his eyes, "So ridiculously self-sacrificing."

The need to scream was palpable in the room. But everyone was silent as the Doctor stared between the two, his hearts thudding loudly against his ribcage. He wanted to say 'Kill me! Kill me!' but he knew that wasn't an option and the Master would simply punish him for it. Owen's pleading words playing in his head, but it didn't make this any easier. In fact, it made it harder. Neither of them deserved this.

"Tick-tock, Doctor," the Master glanced impatiently down at his watch, "Pick one to die or I'll simply kill them both. You don't want that do you?"

After another long, drawn out moment, the Doctor whispered something, so low only Reid, sitting next to him, could hear. The Master's grin was feral and he leaned close, cupping his ear mockingly.

"What was that, Doctor? I'm afraid you'll have to speak up a bit; I didn't quite catch it…"

The Doctor swallowed and cleared his throat, clenching his eyes shut tight as he spoke again,

"Owen…"

Jack's face went white as the Master turned toward the two captives. He lurched forward, screaming incoherently. Owen sat up as straight as he could, sending Jack an apologetic smile and looking one last time at Tish before the laser hit him square in the chest and everything went white.

~/.\~

"Wait, wait, something's coming through!" Garcia tapped the table top and waved, though everyone was already there, gathered around the computer monitors eagerly. All except little Jack who had been put to bed a little early. They didn't want him to see this.

The screen on the monitor fizzled for a moment, going black, then grey and jumping a bit before the image slowly came through. It wasn't exactly a perfect connection, the image a bit fuzzy and the sound a bit crackly, but it was far better than they had expected and they were certainly not complaining.

They could hear a faint voice that became clearer after a couple of seconds as the image on the screen solidified.

"Is it working? Are we connected? Excellent! Thank you Mr. Smith."

They could suddenly see a woman standing there, a faint smile on her face as she turned to face the camera, "Alright, who do we have here?"

Ducky was sitting at the very front of the grouping and he smiled, leaning forward, "Miss Smith, you look just as I recall,"

She blinked, studying him through the somewhat filmy lens and smiled, "Dr. Mallard is that you? It's been quite a while…"

"It has," Ducky nodded, "Can't say I'm surprised to see you here, doing all this. You always were a remarkably intelligent woman. And not afraid to stand up for the right thing."

She smiled brightly, "Well the Doctor taught me that," she said, "…I sometimes like to think I taught him a thing or two, though."

"I'm sure you did."

"Are we the only ones connected?"

"Um, no," Sarah Jane glanced down at something, shaking her head, "there are several others attempting to connect. It's going to be difficult, but I think we can pull it off. The farther away you are, the worse the connection will be, I'm afraid… We'll have to give everyone a few minutes and hope there isn't a delay in time. I'd like to be able to speak to you all once we're online together."

"Sorry," Garcia suddenly leaned forward, squinting a bit at the screen, "but is that your dog?" She was motioning to the table behind Sarah Jane where they could all see the black metal sphere that had been the Toclafane. As it was at the moment, it appeared entirely harmless and it was difficult to imagine that it had wrought such destruction.

Sarah Jane turned around and nodded, "Yes, this is. K-9, say hello," she beamed down at him as the little metal dog lifted his head and wagged his tail, his robotic voice a bit screeching over the speaker.

"Greetings, everyone,"

"Aww!" Abby and Garcia both exclaimed at the same time, Abby's eyes bright as she leaned forward, squinting and trying to see K-9 more clearly through the screen. "He's adorable!"

"Ooh, someone else is coming through! Just a moment, let me see if I can get this to work…" Sarah Jane disappeared from the screen for a moment and they could hear the sound of tapping keys on a keyboard. The screen fizzled for a second and then along the bottom several small boxes appeared. They leaned forward, watching as the images solidified themselves and Sarah was back.

"Alright, we've got a few new guests," she said, "Unfortunately, it looks like Martha isn't with us yet. She was in Moscow last I spoke with her, but she may not be able to connect. We can give her a few moments, but we need to start soon. The longer we keep up the connection, the higher the risk."

"Is that K-9!" a red-headed woman in one of the screens leaned forward, her eyes bright, "He is so cool! It's like something out of an old sci-fi movie…" she paused, leaning back as someone behind her whispered something, "Right. Sorry. Serious situation."

"You must be Charlie," Sarah Jane greeted the woman and looked around, "And we also have Torchwood Three joining us. Their connection is a bit unstable…" One of the screens was indeed flickering in and out, "Toshiko, can you hear me?"

"We can hear you fine, Sarah Jane," a male voice answered back, though they couldn't quite make out his appearance, "Tosh had to go check out cables. This is Ianto speaking…"

"Sorry!" Sarah Jane apologized, "I wish we had time to properly introduce everyone, but as we've all been communicating for the last few months, I think it's probably best to skip that to save time. Dr. Badass…" Sarah Jane smiled a bit, shaking her head at the name, "and his party are here as well."

"Wait," Abby frowned, squinting a bit at the box in the lower right hand side of the monitor, "you're Dr. Badass?"

The man – a thin guy wearing what looked like a leather vest and sporting a very obvious mullet – nodded seriously, "Hell yeah," he said, a faint grin on his face.

Abby giggled and shook her head, "Where'd you get your credentials, Doctor?"

"MIT…"

"Before he got kicked out," someone behind him added.

McGee leaned forward, "You went to MIT?" he asked. At the same time, a blond man with messy curls in Charlie's screen leaned forward curiously and asked, "What did you get kicked out for?"

"Fighting," Ash answered easily, shrugging as if it were no big deal. Abby thought he might have looked just a little bit cocky, actually.

"Fighting!?" was almost unanimously heard across the connection and there was soft laughter coming from somewhere behind Ash's head.

"Why does everyone react like that?" Ash seemed genuinely confused as he looked around at the people gathered around him.

"Because most people who get into MIT don't get kicked out for fighting," McGee said.

"Oh c'mon, McGee," Tony teased, "Not everyone who went to MIT was the perfect little nerd like you."

McGee made a face and frowned, shaking his head.

"Not to interrupt," someone from the Torchwood screen – a tall man with dark curls – said, "but wouldn't our time waiting for Miss Jones be better spent doing something productive?"

"Productive?" a dark haired man from Charlie's screen leaned over her shoulder, his hair a mess, "What exactly are we supposed to be doing right now? Getting to have an actual conversation sounds pretty good."

"No, he's right, Spencer," another man from there shook his head, "we could be doing something. Planning strategy, talking about this plan of the Doctor's. Something that might actually help us out here."

"I second that," a man with a deep voice, looming behind Ash, suddenly spoke up, "We've been talking about ripping the Master's head off for months. Now would be a good time to actually do some face-to-face planning."

Sarah Jane frowned a bit, "I know you're all eager to have the Master out of power, and I completely understand, but the Doctor does have a plan in motion for us. It would be better for everyone if you put your assassination plans on hold for a little while. At least until you know the Doctor's plan."

"But you can't tell us that plan," a dark haired woman standing beside the blond man with Charlie spoke up, "The longer we wait the more difficult it's going to be for us to get any sort of plan going and what if this plan of the Doctor's doesn't work."

"I think we should trust the Doctor," another woman behind her spoke up, peaking her head around so that she could get a clearer view of the screens, "I only knew him briefly, but he seems to have a habit of getting out of impossible situations and he did defeat the Master once before. At least as far I know…"

"You knew the Doctor?" Sarah Jane asked curiously.

"Um, yes, hello," she waved a bit awkwardly, "Grace Holloway."

"From the List," Reid spoke up, remembering her face now that he had her name. The screen was still a bit fuzzy, but he was certain it was the same woman.

"Yes," she nodded, "briefly. He was… very strange, but so remarkable. He offered to let me travel with him…"

"You didn't go?" Ducky asked, genuinely surprised. He would have thought anyone would have jumped at the chance to travel with the Doctor. Despite the dangers he was sure traveling with him entailed, it seemed like quite the adventure. Certainly not something to be lightly passed up.

"W – no," Grace shook her head and sighed, "but I really think we should at least hear the Doctor's plan before we decided to go against it. He knows what he's doing."

"Precisely," Sarah Jane nodded, "And I'm sure Dr. Mallard can attest to the Doctor's ability as well… There are probably a few others out there. Ianto, is Toshiko back? She met the Doctor once."

"I'm here!" an Asian woman waved in the box in the middle of the screen, "And yes, I mean, I only met him extremely briefly, but it was enough to make an impression…" she smiled a bit fondly, "Not to mention Jack – our boss, the man on the Valiant – he spoke about him all the time, about the things he did." She turned to her left for a moment, "Didn't he?"

"Constantly," Ianto made a bit of a face when he agreed, but he nodded, "Jack and the Doctor were very close."

"We've heard the stories," Gibbs said, "You've even told us some of the stories in those coded messages. What I want to know is what this guy's plan is? Amazing or not, he's a captive on that ship and we don't have any idea how he plans to fix this right now. You expect us to just trust this guy without know what he's going to do?"

"Exactly," the tall man behind Ash nodded, "You can just expect us to sit here and do nothing while this guy destroys the entire freaking planet!"

Sarah Jane sighed, "Look, I know you're all frustrated about not knowing the specifics of the Doctor's plan, but I assure you that as soon as we can safely get it across the network we will. Martha is doing her best to get to everyone. If you'll just wait for her to -"

"We can't really keep waiting around," Fornell said, "we've got to do so something."

"We are doing something," a dark skinned man beside Toshiko and Ianto said, leaning down a bit to get his face into the frame. He was the only one who had an American accent of the group so far. "We're trying to combat the Toclafane. That's why we're all here right now. Look, I get that things look bad right now, but war isn't exactly supposed to be pretty. We lost a man a couple of days ago…" his voice broke off and he shook his head, "but I think they're right. You need to put things on hold until you hear the plan. I don't know this Doctor guy, but from what I've been hearing he's pretty good at this kind of thing."

It was a long speech, one that had many of them frowning thoughtfully. Someone in the Torchwood screen that they couldn't see put their hand on the man's shoulder for a moment and there was silence that stretched out.

"He's got a point," another guy behind Ash spoke this time, taller than the one from before, having to bend down quite a bit to be seen at all in the screen. "Maybe we should focus on the Toclafane for now and put the assassination on hold, wait until we know for sure what's what."

"Not a chance," the other guy immediately shook his head, "I'm not waiting around, Sammy, I want this son of a bitch's head on a stick."

"Couldn't put it better myself," Gibbs said, "We can't wait to kill this guy. There are people dying every single day. Look at what he did to Japan! We need to start planning now."

"Maybe being cautious is our best bet," another man said, pushing his way into view on the screen.

"Victor?" Fornell frowned, squinting, "is that you?"

"Tobias!" the guy smiled a bit, "yeah."

Fornell snorted, "You want to be cautious? What happened to going in guns blazing, shooting first and asking questions second?"

Henricksen shrugged, "Maybe the end of the world mellowed me out a bit," he said, "that and having my whole concept of the universe challenged lately. There's some weird shit going on right now, Tobias. You really think running in head first is the best option right now?'

"I think it's better than doing nothing," Gibbs said.

"Exactly! I like this guy,"

"Dean," Sam frowned toward the other man.

"Don't you two start arguing like old ladies," Ash suddenly cut in, "Sarah Jane already told us we don't have a lot of time. We can't waist it listening to you two fighting."

"Wait," Reid frowned and leaned in a bit closer, studying the screen with careful eyes, "Sam and Dean Winchester?"

"…Those names aren't on the list are they?" Abby frowned, glancing at the other man curiously.

"No… they're serial killers…" Hotch blinked and studied the two men that were blurry on the screen. "We did a profile on them."

Fornell frowned, "You were working that case, Victor… What –"

"Hold on," Henricksen held his hands up, butting in front of the brothers so that he was more clearly visible, which admittedly wasn't saying much with how the screen distorted his face until it was just barely recognizable. "Look, before you jump to conclusions just remember what we told you about all those monsters out there. All those holes in your profile. It was because the missing piece was what they were really doing."

"…You're saying they were hunting monsters?"

"Hell yeah we were," Dean suddenly ducked back into view, a frown on his face, "Saving people and getting accused of murder for it. We have a thankless job."

"Dean," Sam hissed at his brother.

"I'm sorry…" Charlie suddenly cut in, "did you guys just say you kill monsters?"

"Every evil son of a bitch we can find, Sweetheart," Dean said, a bit proudly. Sam smacked him on the back of the head and Tony winced with him, thinking of all the times Gibbs had done that exact same thing to him.

"Can we get back on topic?" Sam asked, "We were talking about killing the Master, the plan, remember?"

"I think we should go for it," a dark haired man behind Charlie said, "doing anything is better than sitting around. That bastard has killed too many people to be forgiven,"

"We've all lost people," Sarah Jane said, "I know this is difficult, but we really do need to wait. Patience is important here."

"Look, it's worth a shot,"

"You aren't going to win," the man with dark curls with Toshiko said, "it's only going to end with more people dying pointlessly. Do you want to do all of this work to plan what will essentially be a suicide mission?"

"We've got t do something!" Gibbs argued, "We should have a plan in motion."

"If we're going to go after the Master, we need to get onto the Valiant," another red head behind Charlie spoke, "How are we going to do that? It's not like we can just sneak on board."

"He takes important prisoners there to execute them," Dean pointed out.

"You want someone to be bait for this?" a blond woman, sitting down directly on Charlie's right suddenly spoke up, her eyes wide as she stared at the screen. "You can't actually ask someone to do that."

"It's our best shot. We meet up somewhere and someone attracts the authorities or whatever and we have a few high profiler people from the List there. We knock the guards out, take their papers and uniforms and beam me up, Scotty." Dean was adamant about the plan.

"They don't use teleporters, Dean," Sam sighed, "And how do you even plan to make it through this. We have to take their aerial ships to get onboard and the Valiant's in the sky. You hate flying."

Dean froze for a second, "I'll get over. Look, it's a plan, alright? It's something. We get enough people onboard and we can storm the place. The Master never comes down here, so we've got to go to him."

"It sounds like a decent enough plan," the blond man with the messy curls said, "but who are you going to get to volunteer as bait?"

"I will," Prentiss spoke up immediately.

"Emily, no," Tony frowned, shaking his head, "Come on, they can't ask you to do that."

"They didn't," Prentiss said, "I'm volunteering. I'm higher up on the list than most of you because of my mother… Except Reid."

"Why don't I do it then?" Reid suggested.

"No," Morgan immediately spoke up, shaking his head, "We aren't risking you going out there like that, Reid. Besides, what if the Master gets his hands on you? You ever think about what might happen if he has two of you? You watch all those weird sci-fi movies… That can't be good."

"Wait, what?" Charlie frowned, "Two of who?"

"Spencer Reid," Garcia explained quickly, "he's on the Valiant and he's also with us. We figure he must be from the future or something, traveled here with the Doctor somehow."

"Whoa, yeah," Charlie nodded, "you definitely shouldn't be there. If the two of you meet you could, like, create some kind of paradox and rip the whole fabric of time to shreds. At least… that's what I've seen in movies…"

"I leave you guys alone for five minutes and you're talking about movies," a new voice suddenly broke into the conversation and Sarah Jane blinked in surprised, ducking quickly toward her computer. There were a few clicking noises before a new box appeared on the screen, a smiling dark skinned woman there.

"Martha! Glad you could make it!"

"Sarah Jane, I'm so sorry! We had a bit of trouble with the computers here… It took us longer than we expected."

"At least you got connected," Sarah Jane said, nodded at her. "Now we really should get started," she said, "you can all talk about your other plans some other time. We've already been on this connection longer than we should."

The main screen moved away from Sarah Jane's face and zoomed in to the table where the Toclafane lay, completely harmless. Up close, the fuzziness of the connection wasn't quite as bad and they could all make out the silver lines and the seams in the metal. Sarah Jane's hand came into the frame, motioning to where the seams connected.

"We've been examining it since we brought it here. As far as we can tell, there is something inside the sphere. We think that the metal casing might be protecting the creature inside. We've already tried prying it apart with tools, but it's clamped with a powerful magnet and I don't want to risk damaging the creature if we can avoid it. K-9,"

"Yes, Mistress?" the little robotic voice got an "aww" out of Abby, Charlie and Garcia, which made a few others giggle. Sarah Jane smiled a bit to herself, but ignored it otherwise.

"Would you do the honors?"

A laser beam entered the frame, connecting to the seams in the sphere at the apex, following along one of them carefully for a moment before the thing suddenly made a whooshing noise, like air being released from an airlock. The laser disappeared and Sarah Jane's hands vanished from the frame as the sphere cracked, splitting into four parts and falling back. Several gasps could be heard over the connection.

"Oh my god…" Martha breathed, leaning forward to stare at the thing inside.

It was a face. It looked almost melted, the eyes closed, the skin thick and rubbery and squished down onto the surface.

"Is that… a face?" a blond woman in Charlie's box leaned forward her eyes wide.

Sarah Jane's hand reappeared in the frame, touching along the edges of the metal. She was wearing a pair of gloves and holding a small scalpel. Before she could place the tip of the scalpel anywhere near the fleshy inside, the thing gasped and it's eyes opened, sending Sarah Jane skittered backwards.

"It's alive!" she breathed, moving closer to it. The eyes were filmy and glazed over, like death. There didn't appear to even be a pupil at all. "I've never seen anything like this… Martha? Have you?"

"No," Martha shook her head, "Can it speak? Can you speak?"

"Martha? Martha Jones?" the voice in the machine was pitched high, trilling a bit with the mechanics the thing was incased in. "You helped us fly!"

Martha blinked, "I…what?" she frowned, "Can it see me?"

"I'm not sure…" Sarah Jane frowned, "the camera is focused on it. If it can see, it should be able to."

Martha nodded and scooted closer to the screen, "Hello," she sounded a bit awkward, "Can you tell what you mean? How did I help you fly?"

"You sent us to Utopia!" the voice was still high pitched and childlike. Martha felt her heart jerk in her chest, her eyes wide.

"What's he talking about?" someone asked. Martha didn't know who or really care to find out.

"What? What did you say?"

"The skies are made of diamonds!"

Martha slid back violently, disappearing from her frame for a moment, her eyes wide and her lips parted a bit. "You can't be…" she whispered, her voice shaking. Now that it had hit her, she remembered the trilling, lilted little voice very much. An image flashed in her mind of a dimpled little boy with blond curls and big blue eyes. "You can't be him…"

"Martha? What's wrong?" Sarah Jane frowned, glancing toward her monitor, "Martha? What is it?"

Martha's voice was strangled as she stared at the screen, "They're us," she whispered, "They're humans…"

~/.\~

A/N: This chapter took a bit longer than I wanted to write, but I'm still proud of myself for getting it up so fast and for getting the Toclafane reveal in there. The video feed was really fun to write, but I'm still worried about it… I think I gave most everyone a moment, but I'm sure I missed some people. (And thank you to KMW1968 for pointing out that I had forgotten Ianto entirely in the last few chapters! I can't believe I did that!)

I very much enjoyed giving Jake that speech though. Writing him in this, I've come to really like his character. It makes it that much more painful to hate him for "All Hell Breaks Loose" though. Like, I get the feeling he and Sam could've been such friends… *sigh* Oh well. I debated about putting the scene with Owen first or last, because it's the more emotional scene of the two, but I wanted to end with the revelation about the Toclafane so…