Chapter Thirty Seven: Aftermath

A/N:

SPOILERS!!

Takes place after Journey's End… my version of it (which doesn't vary all that much from the original, it was just a matter of finishing what I'd started after I decided to "rewrite" The Stolen Earth.

This is just a short little wrap-up of loose ends… although personally, I would induce planet wide amnesia, but since that didn't happen… I think the assumption is that eventually people will go back to living their lives but in the immediate aftermath, folks are still picking up the pieces of their lives and that includes the members of Torchwood.

Alice Jones ran out of the house before Ianto was even out of the SUV. It was mere hours since things had returned to normal, since the earth had mysteriously (and spectacularly) returned home, hurtling through space by unknown means.

Ianto caught her up in his arms and held her close, "I'm all right, Mam," he whispered to her unintelligible sobs. "Shhh…. It's ok… Nerys…? Is she all right?" but even as he said his sister's name, he saw Nerys step out onto the porch, her six year old daughter in her arms. Ner had been crying recently… everyone probably had, he realized.

People from other houses were coming out onto their porches as well, or staring out their windows, as the other four people slid out of the big black SUV. (Martha was already on her way back to London to check in on her own family before reporting back to UNIT.)

"Is everyone all right?" Ianto asked his mother in a firm tone that he hoped would get her to calm down just enough so she could answer the question.

Alice nodded, wiping her cheeks even though the tears kept coming. Jack reached into his pocket and fished out a clean handkerchief, the kind that had fallen out of fashion at least three decades ago, and handed it to her.

"Only you," Alice smiled up at him, accepting the square of cloth and using it to wipe her eyes. It didn't do much good. "I was so worried about you… both of you," Alice gazed up at her son's partner, laying her hand on his arm and squeezing tight. "I tried calling. I tried both of you. I've been calling for hours." Her tone was plaintive, as if begging for some sort of explanation as she glanced from him to Ianto and back again.

"We erm… we were out of range," Ianto swallowed the lump in his throat. He realized that his mother must have thought that they were dead. He laid a hand on her shoulder. "We're all right, Mam. Is everyone… have you heard from my brothers?"

"Everyone's all right. The kids are all really shaken up, but everyone… nobody…" she cleared her throat, forcing the word 'died' away. "Can you stay a while?" She glanced at the three other people as if only noticing them for the first time. Wendy she knew and Bobby she had met at the wedding. The third was a stranger to her.

"This is Mickey Smith," Jack introduced him, "He's… do I really have to call you a friend?"

"Watch it," Mickey gave him a dark look. His expression became more civil, however, when he turned his attention to Ianto's mother. "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Jones," he pulled off his gloves before shaking her hand.

"Please… please, Alice is fine… can you come in?" she glanced up at Jack. "I could put the kettle on… make some sandwiches… Ianto?" she shifted her gaze to her son's face.

Ianto looked questioningly at Jack; he nodded. "We've got a few minutes... assuming you kids have nowhere you need to be?" he glanced at Bobby and Wendy.

"Sandwiches sound great," Bobby agreed. "Thanks, Alice," he added to Ianto's mother.

She smiled as if having them accept her invitation meant the world… at that very moment, it did because sandwiches and tea were normal and normal was something everyone was trying to cling to in the wake of the day's astronomical events.

As soon as they reached the porch, Ianto pulled his sister into his arms, "Are you two all right?"

Nerys just nodded into his shoulder, holding him one handed.

"Remi?" he asked his niece, as his mother shuffled the rest of them into the house. "Sweetheart, are you ok?" it wasn't like her to be so silent.

"I knew you weren't dead," she said, her voice a ghostly whisper.

Ianto took her from his sister's arms and held her tight, "No, no I'm not dead. I'm fine. We all are. It's all going to be ok now." He felt his own tears threatening to break free again. Driving here from where the TARDIS had landed, seeing the devastation, the celebrations in the street, listening to the news reports on the radio… skimming the internet… putting it all into prospective… "It's over," he told Remi firmly. "We're all going to be ok."

He wondered if this was what Jack had meant when he said that this was the century when it all changed… only Jack had been as unprepared for what had happened as the rest of them and surly something like the Earth being pulled out of its orbit was the sort of thing that would have made fifty-first century history books.

"Ianto… what happened today?" Nerys asked. Her tone was full of fear.

Looking into his sister's eyes, near carbon copies of his own, he suspected that she was as afraid of the truth as she was of not knowing it. "You don't want to know."

"Yes I do," her voice was a terse whisper.

Ianto pulled Remi tighter and motioned for his sister to have a seat on the porch with him. They sat down together on the stoop, Remi still clinging to his neck. He studied Nerys's face for a moment more before telling her, "The Earth was transported to some other part of the galaxy… or… I don't know, maybe it wasn't this galaxy. The Daleks pulled us and twenty six other planets out of time and space to form some kind of planet-powered super conductor."

She blinked.

"It doesn't matter…"

"Don't stop."

"Nerys…"

"I said don't stop," her tone was ragged. "If you know what happened…? If you really know…" it seemed as if she was starting to understand some of the things that he wasn't explicitly saying.

Ianto sighed. He cradled his niece's head against his shoulder. She didn't seem to care about what they were saying, she just wanted to be held. "I really know, Nerys."

"Torchwood has nothing to do with terrorists, does it?" It wasn't really a question.

"No. No it is all about terrorists. It's just that most of them aren't human."

She gave him a long hard look. "How long… how long have you… known about… about…?" she didn't seem to be able to say the word aloud.

"Aliens?"

"Yeah."

Ianto took a deep breath and stared up at the sky. The beautiful blue sky. Clouds were rolling in fast, threatening rain, but it was still beautiful. He returned his gaze to his sister's face. "Lisa… Lisa didn't die in a fire, that was just a cover story. What happened at Canary Wharf was an invasion. Daleks and… and Cybermen."

"And you were there."

"I was there."

"Where were you today?"

"Up there," he nodded towards the sky. "With Jack."

Her breath caught in her throat as she tried to stifle the sob.

Ianto slid one arm around his sister's shoulders and pulled her in close. "It's not all aliens waiting to attack," he found himself using Jack's words. "There are amazing things out there…"

She looked up at him, a thousand questions in her eyes.

He shook his head, answering the most obvious, "Today was the first, and hopefully last, time I ever leave this planet."

"So how do you know it's not all… all… "

"Aliens waiting to attack?" he asked.

"Yeah. How do you know?"

Before he could answer, the front door opened up and Jack stepped out onto the porch. He knelt down behind Ianto's sister and laid a hand on her shoulder, "Trust me on this one," he said quietly.

Nerys looked over her shoulder at him.

Jack just winked.

Short of retconning the entire planet, there was no way of getting around the fact that the human race was now aware of their place in the Universe… he just hoped they were ready because this had not been the history books.

In the distance, thunder rumbled.

"You kids should come inside," Jack said quietly, nodding up at the sky. "Weather patters are going to be screwed up for a while."

Ianto nodded, but before he stood up, he asked his sister if they could keep this conversation between them. He didn't want their brothers to know he did anything other than work in a tourist office.

"But why…?" she looked from her brother to Jack and back again. The latter just shrugged, making it clear that it was Ianto's call.

"What I do has nothing to do with them," the Welshman explained. "And I really don't care what they think of me."

She nodded, reluctantly.

"Remi?" Ianto said quietly to the child whose head was still resting on his shoulder. "Can you keep a secret?" he wasn't sure how much of the conversation she had understood, but he knew that kids were smarter than most adults gave them credit for.

She lifted her head and looked at him, questingly, still very, very quiet.

"If you can," Ianto cast a quick glance at Jack, who was probably going to have a fit over this, "I might be able to introduce you to a pterodactyl. But you'd have to be very good at keeping secrets, first."