Disclaimer: No. Nah. Nil point. Nope. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Naught. Nothing. Not mine. Don't own.
A/N: You know, I think I might have stolen the chapter title from somewhere. It just came to me, like magic, and it sounded ever so slightly familiar. I have changed it a little, but I just can't place where I heard it first... -racks brains- Nope, no idea. Ah well... ((It's called sarcasm people, and it's my thing.))
Anyway, thank you to Martha Smith for making me update (finally). And I'm thrilled to announce that I'm now on study leave, which means more time to write! ...I mean - erm, study...
The Parting Of Ways
After a "short" trip to the year 2022, to explain the situation to Jackie (and my former school) and say goodbye, the Doctor, Jack, Martha and I were back in Cardiff. Although glad that the confrontation was over (the Doctor's left cheek was still ever so slightly pink and my eyes were still puffy), I couldn't help but begin to miss my dear grandmother. I silently reminded myself of the promise the Doctor had made to Jackie - that he'd take me back to visit her at least once a month - and wondered what he'd do to try getting out of it. He had no chance. I owed Jackie that much, since I now knew the secret she'd been keeping for so long. And my friends (who were now firmly under the belief that I had moved to some kind of bording school) deserved as much as well.
We all looked out at the Torchwood tower, and Jack and I knew we were home.
"Time was, every single one of these people knew your name." Martha said, astounded. "Now they've all forgotten you."
"Good." the Doctor said, at my side.
"Back to work." said a voice on my other side - Jack was ducking under the railings we had been leaning on. I shrugged the Doctor's arm off my shoulders and followed suit with a grin, my face no longer aching with each movement, though my body was still slightly scarred and bruised.
"And you're sure you won't come back?" the Doctor offered. "Both of you?"
"Had plenty of time to think that past year. The Year That Never Was." Jack told us, and he glanced back to the fountain concealing the Torchwood hub. "And I kept thinking about that team of mine. Our team." he added, glancing at me. "Like you said, Doctor, responsibility."
"Defending the Earth." the Doctor agreed. "Can't argue with that."
He reached out, as if to shake Jack's hand, but then he was reaching into his pocket, with Jack's Vortex Manipulator firm in his grasp.
"Hey, I need that!" Jack protested, but the Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver.
"I can't have you walking around with a time-travelling teleport." He held the sonic screwdriver over the device, pressed a few buttons, then released Jack's wrist. "You could go anywhere. Twice. The second time to apologise."
I grinned, stepped forwards to reach the Doctor, and wrapped my arms around him over the railings, wishing I didn't have to go, but longing to be back with the team. He pressed a kiss to my forehead, and I kissed his cheek before stepping back.
"Thank you. Oh, and... I forgive you." I said with a smile, with nothing else to add, realising that through our various arguments, I'd never accepted his apologies for leaving me and losing Rose. Not that I blamed him, of course.
"Thank you." he replied with a smile. "You helped save the world."
"Yep." I nodded happily. "That I did." I paused. "And you'll be here in a month? Definitely?" I asked hesitantly. The Doctor grinned.
"'Course I will." he smiled, and I beamed. "And you look after her." he added to Jack.
"I'll do my best." he grinned back. I took a step towards Martha. She smiled warmly.
"What can I say?" I said with a sigh, hardly knowing where to begin. "I'm sorry I was so... well, horrible to you, at first."
"Forget it." Martha smiled. "I understand. And thanks, Alli. Don't know what I'd have done without you this past year."
"Likewise." I nodded, and leaned in to exchange a goodbye hug. "Take care."
"And you." she said warmly, and released me with a wide smile.
This time, when I stepped back, I was at Jack's side, and he was saluting the Doctor.
"Sir." he said, his hand at his forehead, and the Doctor gave a one-fingered salute back. Jack winked at Martha. "Ma'am." Martha smiled and gave him a little salute in return as well. I rolled my eyes.
Jack turned to leave, but I stayed where I was. "I'll see you again soon, yeah?" I checked. "Both of you?"
They both grinned, though Martha's, for some reason, looked slightly forced. "We won't forget."
I smiled with relief and turned back to follow Jack, but he had now turned back to the Doctor as well.
"Doctor, what about me?" he asked. "Can you fix that? Will I ever be able to die?"
"Nothing I can do." the Doctor replied, looking Jack up and down. "You're an impossible thing, Jack."
"Been called that before." Jack laughed, but he still looked worried. "But I keep wondering... What about aging? 'Cause, I can't die, but I keep getting older. The odd little grey hair, you know?" He put his hands on his hips, contemplating. "What happens if I live for a million years?"
"I really don't know." the Doctor grinned, and Jack chuckled.
"Okay, vanity. Sorry. Yeah, can't help it." He smiled and walked forwards. "Used to be a poster boy, when I was a kid, back on the Boeshane Peninsula." I smiled at the memory, but I silently prayed the Doctor wouldn't put two and two together and realise that was the same place I had gotten engaged to Jack. I wasn't quite prepared for that discussion yet. He didn't seem to remember. Jack was still talking. "Tiny little place. I was the first one ever to be signed up for the Time Agency. They were so proud of me. The Face of Boe they called me."
The Doctor's face suddenly dropped to one of mixed surprise and shock. Was he remembering? Jack smiled fondly at his memory, too absorbed in it to notice the Doctor's sudden reaction. "I'll see you." Jack finished, and turned back around to walk back to the fountain.
I followed, glancing back at the Doctor, but whatever he seemed to have realised was apparently not that Jack was my ex-fiancé, since Martha seemed to be sharing his glee.
Jack linked his hand in mine casually, and we walked together to the Hub's entrance. My heart was beating fast; I was eager to see the team again, but nervous about their reactions. I tried not to focus on the state of my face and lower arms - the parts of my body that were exposed.
"Jack, how's long's it been?" I asked as we walked, frowning. "Since we left, I mean. It was the end of July, yeah? What's the date now, when did he leave us?"
Jack frowned. "Well," he checked his Vortex Manipulator, pressed a few buttons and grimaced. "Nothing. Needs to be re-configured after whatever the Doctor did to it." he explained. "Don't you have your phone on you?"
I shook my head. "They took it when... y'know. I'm gonna need a new one, I s'pose." I didn't want to recap the event of my capture. Jack understood.
"Well, if it was July when we left... assuming we arrived back from the future a couple of weeks after that - or months, knowing the Doctor - then met the Master, lived a year, then time reversed... should be about mid-August, perhaps September."
"And've you got any ideas about how we're gonna explain this to the others?" I asked hopefully.
"Nope." Jack said cheerfully. "I'm thinking we keep it to a polite 'none of your business' and ignore them if they ask again." Whether he was joking or not, I didn't laugh.
"We can't keep hidin' stuff from them." I told him seriously. "You especially."
"They don't need to know."
"You're our leader!" I protested. "Don't you think they deserve to know who they're takin' orders from?" Jack didn't reply. I knew it was no use.
In no time at all, it seemed, we were already at the tourist office where Ianto was going to be stood behind the counter, perhaps drinking coffee, pondering something mundane or worrying where Jack and I were.
With a quick glance at each other, we walked through the door into the office. Despite the fact that it was the middle of the day, Ianto was nowhere to be seen.
"Looks like we're gonna have to face them all together." grimaced Jack. Clearly he had been hoping for a quiet word to Ianto before seeing the others.
Bracing ourselves, we slipped through the door in the wall and walked in silence down the passageway. The siren sounded, loud and clear, when we walked into the Hub. It looked pretty much the same as it had done when we'd left it, though perhaps a little tidier. I grinned at the sight of the place, despite myself. We stopped dead, our hands still clasped in an act of unity. But no one came.
I cast Jack a nervous glance, worried that something terrible might have happened to them.
"Weren't they in the Himalayas?" I suggested.
"Yeah, but that must have been days ago, weeks even. Surely they'd have come back when they saw - or heard about, at least - the President being killed."
"Maybe we got the date wrong."
"Maybe they're just... out."
Jack walked over up the stairs to his office and I followed, for a lack of anything better to do. He opened the door and walked inside, and so did I, noting that everything was exactly the same as I remembered it. It looked as if no one had even entered the room, and I didn't rule this out as a possibility. I felt a little awkward as I remembered what had happened the last time I'd been in this office, and quickly excused myself, muttering something about going to make myself a cup of coffee.
When Jack returned downstairs, to find me sat at Toshiko's desk with a mug of steaming coffee, he was holding two small objects in his hand. He threw one of them to me, and I caught it with a curious expression. I opened my hand: it was a bluetooth earpiece.
"Jack, you're not serious?" I asked, exasperated.
"Why not?" he asked, holding him his own earpiece.
"You're gonna do this over the phone?"
Jack hesitated, then cast the earpiece aside and sat down at the desk next to me. "Yeah, you're right." He sniffed casually. "We should at least give Gwen a chance to punch me."
I snorted, but it soon turned into a look of concern. "D'you think they'll be mad?"
Jack shrugged. "Probably. I can see Gwen being mad. Owen'll probably toss a bunch of insults out then forget about it. Toshiko might understand. Ianto..."
"We'll just have to... wait, then." I said, not exactly thrilled at the prospect, and neither needing or wanting to force him to finish his sentence.
So, over the next few hours, Jack ventured through the paperwork, in an attempt to catch us up on what we'd missed, and perhaps get a clue as to where the others might be. I found out the date (Jack had been right, it was late-August), drank several cups of coffee, and spent a while worrying about where the rest of the team could be and what they'd say when they saw us.
Jack had convinced me that we should let them come back in their own time, rather than hunt them down and go looking for them. I started getting rather restless - after half a year of sitting around in a pitch black cell doing nothing, I was aching to get out into the world again, and I didn't much like the fact that I was being copped up inside the Hub when I could be having the same adventure as the rest of the team, wherever they were.
When it was getting dark outside, I began to get worried. Switching on Toshiko's computer, I trawled through her programs to find what I was looking for. I eventually found and pulled up the tracking program, and entered the SUV's registration number. For a tense few minutes, the frustrating 'LOADING' sign whirled around on the screen, but then, with a loud beep, the computer flashed to an area of Wales where the car had been located. I laughed, pleased with myself for finding them, then looked around for Jack. He was still down in the Archives.
"Jack?" I yelled into the empty room. A few seconds later, Jack appeared at the top of the steps and walked into the room.
"What is it?" he asked interestedly.
"I know where the others are."
"Really?" he asked. "Where? And how?"
"Tosh's tracking system. And here." I pointed to the car's location on the screen. "Should we go?"
Jack thought for a moment. "Keep the program up. If they haven't moved in an hour, we'll set off."
"But -"
"Alli, they can take care of themselves." Jack reminded me, slightly patronisingly. I scowled, and he made his way back towards the stairs to the Archives.
I typed a few things into the system, casually wondering whether there was any alien life around. Just as Jack was about to descend down to the Archives again, I froze.
"Jack -"
"Alli, I'm sure they're fine, just -"
"No! Jack - they're moving!" I exclaimed, pointing at the screen. He rushed over. "And look - that signifies an alien life, just ahead of them."
It seemed that they were chasing an alien. I grabbed Toshiko's mini tracking device, slightly surprised she didn't have it with her, but then remembering they were in the SUV and therefore didn't need it, and held it up. "Fancy giving them a hand?" I asked hopefully, and I started transferring the co-ordinates and information onto the little phone-like computer. The SUV's location appeared on the small screen, still following a small red dot.
Jack looked down at the screen, then up at me. He grinned.
A/N: Bring on series 2!
