"Just do it!" She heard Jack shout at Tosh down the comms. his voice was the closest to sheer panic she'd ever heard from him, and her fingers wrapped around the breaker switch, immediately yanking up with a grunt of effort.

The whole building powered down. The emergency lighting was the only thing to see by, and it painted everything in a dull, eerie, red. Suddenly, the hub seemed terrifying, and the shadows seemed darker than black like they could lead Rose straight back into the void.

Trapped inside, with a Cyberman, in the dark, Rose shuddered.

"Jack?" Rose asked softly, scared to let her voice travel as Tosh appeared beside her, "Gwen? Owen? Are you alright?"

There was silence for a long moment, and Rose drew in a trembling breath, "Someone, tell me what's going on down there? Are you still— Are you still there?"

"I'm fine. I'm fine, I'm fine. Sort of. Jack, please get me out of here," Rose heard Gwen mutter, and she let loose the breath she'd been holding. While it wasn't a direct answer to her questions, it was close enough for her.

"Where is she? Where did she go? Please tell me you got her..." came through next and Rose's fingers tightened around the gun in her hand.

"Jack, what do you want us to do?" Rose asked again, waiting with barely restrained patience for the man to answer her.

"Stay there, keep your eyes open. I'm bringing Gwen, Owen... and Ianto back up with me," he ordered eventually, and Rose grit her teeth.

There was a fury in Jack's voice, and she had to work hard to push down her own flare of anger while guiding Toshiko back to the stairs that led up to the catwalks.

Not all of the Cybermen had crossed over to this universe. Some had remained on Pete's world and had avoided the void. Damaged units or half converted were kept hidden from Torchwood by ordinary people, desperate to help the Cybermen return to their humanity, to change their way of thinking or heal them in some way.

For a while, Torchwood had even tried to help. With access to Lumic's blueprints and data, they thought they might be able to give the Cybermen their minds back, but it always ended the same way. More human deaths, and a Cyberman on the loose trying to convert more and restart the war.

They'd shut down the rehabilitation program.

All the Cybermen in this universe were supposed to have been sucked into the void. People on this side hadn't experienced a long term battle against the metal men. Hadn't been faced with the cyber units single-mindedness and unwavering dedication to conversion that Pete's world had, so Rose understood.

If the people of Pete's world were willing to try and fix the Cybermen, despite everything they had done, she could easily see how someone might try the same thing here.

But, deluded by hope, Ianto hadn't just put their lives at risk, he'd put the whole planet in danger. Depending on how much information had been downloaded from the Cyber controller, potentially the whole universe.

"Tosh, get everything from the weapons room. Fast as you can," Jack's voice snapped across the hub as he and the others emerged from the lower levels, and Rose turned to face him. One glance at his eyes, swirling with emotions, and Rose knew she was going to have to be the level headed one. Jack didn't take well to betrayal after the Time Agency.

"It's locked down. There's no manual override," Tosh said, and Rose offered her a tight smile.

"See if you can find a way to trip the signal and get it open. We're going to need every weapon we've got," she told the woman, watching carefully as Jack turned his attention to Ianto.

"On your knees. Hands above your head," the Captain growled. Ianto didn't even put up a token fight, and Rose could read the agony in every line of his body.

"Jack, for god's sake. What are you doing?" Tosh gasped, and Jack snapped.

"Tosh, I gave you an order! Gwen, help her!" he demanded, before returning his attention and his gun to Ianto. "Did you know that thing was down there?"

Rose approached slowly until she was standing close enough to intervene if Jack's temper got the better of him. Despite knowing the answer to Jack's question already, Ianto's choked reply still drew tears to Ros's eyes.

"I put her there."

One more step closer to Jack and Rose gently pushed his gun away from Ianto.

"Jack—" she started, but the Captain was beyond listening, whipping his weapon away from her hand, and re-aiming it. Stepping up to Ianto he grasped the man's hair with one hand, the barrel of the weapon tight to the Welshman's forehead as he continued to snarl questions.

"You hid a Cyberman within Torchwood, and you didn't tell us? What else are you keeping from us?!"

The cold click of her own weapon almost surprised Rose as it pressed against Jack's shoulder.

"Get ahold of yourself, Jack," she ordered, her own voice tightly controlled, but it appeared that the Captain had pushed Ianto further than he was willing to go and the Welshman responded with a swift rebuttal, his voice shaking with anger and frustration, hopelessness and heartbreak.

"Like you care," he spat, meeting Jack's gaze with either resignation or a complete lack of fear, his hands still clasped behind his head, "I clear up your shit. No questions asked, and that's just the way you like it. When did you last ask me anything about my life?"

There was a beat of silence, and something told Rose that Jack was genuinely thinking about that question, and didn't know the answer. His eyes flicked to hers, and she saw the surprise there as he registered her weapon trained on him.

He let another moment pass before he finally took a step back and uncocked his pistol, Rose slowly following suit and flicking the safety on before she crouched beside Ianto.

Her hands were gentle as they tugged on his wrists, encouraging him to lower his arms, and he didn't seem to notice when he grasped at her hand in his own like a lifeline in the Atlantic ocean.

"Her name's Lisa," he continued, turning to Rose with tears beginning to stream down his face. "She's my girlfriend."

"Why didn't you tell us? We could have helped you," Gwen lamented, her own hands shaking from adrenaline and shock, but Rose knew the answer to this as well, and she and Ianto answered in unison.

"Torchwood exists to destroy aliens."

"Torchwood exists to destroy aliens," Ianto turned to study Rose's face for a moment before he nodded, "exactly. Why would I tell you about her?" he continued, turning his hard gaze back to Jack, eyes narrowed.

"A little loyalty, perhaps?" Owen snarled, rubbing the back of his head.

"My loyalty's to her!" Ianto cried, his voice breaking and face twisted into grief.

"She worked for Torchwood One, right?" Rose asked, her voice gentle, "The Cyberman conversion units didn't extend beyond Canary Wharf."

"That's right," Ianto nodded, "she got caught up in the battle. Near the end, the Cybermen needed soldiers so they started upgrading whole bodies instead of just brains. Lisa was halfway through conversion when the machines shut down."

"Did she tell you that?" Rose asked, and bit her lip at his nod.

"I owe it to Lisa. We, Torchwood, owe it to her to find a cure!"

Rose braced herself for the difficult conversation she'd had a hundred times, convincing someone that their loved one was gone even when they were right in front of them, but Jack was still reeling from the perceived betrayal, and fear was making him reckless.

"Ianto, you have to believe me, there is no cure. There never will be. Those who are converted stay that way. Your girlfriend will not be the exception!"

"Jack!" Rose shouted back at the man, eyes wide at the callousness of his words.

"You can't know that for sure!" Ianto all but sobbed and Rose shook her head, eyes narrowed furiously at the Captain.

"Look, you need to know—"

"Jack! That's enough!" Rose snapped, rising to her feet and placing herself between the furious Jack and the sobbing Ianto. "Keep an eye out for Lisa, give me a few minutes," she only half asked, eyebrows raised and no one was more surprised than her when Jack took a step back before nodding a silent agreement and turning to organize the rest of the team.

Rose took a deep breath, and released it before turning back to the distraught Welshman, and dropping back to her knees before him.

"I need you to listen to me because we don't have much time," she said gently, before pausing and waiting for Ianto to gather himself and meet her eyes. "I understand—" Ianto scoffed, cutting her off, but Rose just shook her head, "No, I really do. The Cybermen weren't on this side of the void long enough for this situation to become common, but in the parallel world this happened a lot."

"You don't talk about it," Ianto muttered, as though confused about why she was divulging this information about her life, to him, now of all times.

"Partial conversions, damaged cyber units, you name it. If it had once been human then there was a family, or a lover, or a friend who not only wanted them back, but was convinced there was a way to reverse the process... and we had access to all the data and blueprints that built them in the first place," Rose admitted. "Theoretically, it should have been childs play to reverse the procedure—"

"So you can save her?" The hope in Ianto's eyes killed her, and Rose shook her head.

"It never worked," she told him gently. "The cybernetics are the only things keeping the mind, or in this case the body and mind, alive. They have emotional inhibitors built into them because the procedure hurts. The pain kills the human, and the cybernetic artificial intelligence chip utilises the memories stored inside the brain to gather knowledge and information. All that knowledge can then be transferred to the memory banks of every connected Cyber unit," she tried to explain quickly, "I knew it was too late for Lisa when you said she'd told you that the Cybermen needed soldiers fast. She's already had the data download from the Cyber controller. She's more machine than human—"

"You're not listening to me! The conversion was never completed!" Ianto shouted in desperation, and Rose let him, but his raised voice drew Jack's attention again, and he was in what Rose had long ago fondly dubbed his protective-big-brother mode.

"She's already tried to kill Gwen. You think she's gonna stop there? There is no turning back for her now!"

Jack's harsh words relit Ianto's fire to fight, and he turned away from Rose, scrabbling his way to his feet and he tried to get away from the truth behind Jack's harsh words.

"I'm not giving up on her! I love her! Can you understand that, Jack? Haven't you ever loved anyone?"

Rose drew a sharp intake of breath at Ianto's question, and she could all but feel the vibration of Jack's anger from across the room. She climbed to her feet quickly, but somehow Jack managed to rein himself in.

"You need to figure out whose side you're on here," Jack said quietly, "because if you don't know you're not going to make it out of here alive."

"Jack, there's no way to get this weapon store open," Owen called and Tosh let out a groan of frustration.

"It's going to take six hours for the power to come back online!"

"And we've only got a handgun each between us," Gwen added, the combined panic in the room rising, and Rose met Jack's eyes for a long moment as she tried to find a way to get everyone out of the situation alive and, with any luck, mostly uninjured.

"Let me talk to her. I can still save her. Save all of us. She's not a monster," Ianto begged, and Rose let her sadness for him shine through in her eyes and the slump of her shoulders.

"Not a monster, no. But she is damaged beyond repair, Ianto, I'm sorry—"

"Ianto!" Gwen shouted, and all eyes spun to where the brunette was pointing, weapons raised instinctively, and each of them taking aim at the Cyberwoman.

"Hold fire!" Rose ordered, her eyes locked on Lisa and Ianto, "Let him try."

"Rose, come on—" Jack hissed, his voice closer than she remembered him standing, but Rose cut him off with a sharp shake of her head.

"He has to see for himself that she's too far gone," she whispered back. "If he's fighting to save her he'll just get in the way."

Jack didn't say anything, but he didn't start shooting either, so Rose took it as a win. Her own weapon was trained on the creature from her nightmares, but she would give Ianto his chance.

She could hear Gwen arguing with Jack as Ianto approached Lisa slowly, and the Captain reaffirmed Roses' hold fire command as the Cyberwoman announced that the hub was a suitable location to rebuild its army.

"Who are you, identify yourself!" Rose called, watching as Ianto's head whipped around to stare at her, before turning back to his girlfriend.

"I am human two-point-oh," she declared, and Ianto let loose a broken-sounding sob.

"No. Lisa. You're Lisa..."

"Why do you look like human one-point-oh?" Rose continued, her heart breaking for Ianto, and her stomach rolling in fear, but her voice never wavered. "Clarify this discrepancy."

The cyberwoman hesitated, and her head tipped to one side like a curious puppy before she straightened and spoke, "I do not understand."

"Look at yourself," Jack encouraged, seeming to catch onto Roses' plan, "go on..."

"Remember, Lisa. Remember who you are," Ianto begged, and a tiny part of Rose hoped that this time, just this once, she was wrong. That the humanity would break through. That the love they'd shared would overpower Lumic's electronics, but the Cyberwoman crushed her heart alongside Ianto's.

Lisa turned on the spot, coming face-to-face with a shiny metallic sheet that acted as an impromptu mirror. It had only been a few days ago that Rose had teased Jack about the strategically placed reflective surfaces scattered around the hub that were feeding his overgrown ego, and now there was a Cyberwoman using one as a looking glass.

"The upgrade is incomplete—!"

There was a note of horror to her mechanical tone, and Rose let her eyes slip shut in defeat for just a moment, but Ianto either didn't hear or didn't want to hear what was so plainly there to Roses' trained ear. She'd dealt with enough Cybermen over the years to distinguish tones in their all but monotonous voices.

She'd been right, for all the good it did them. It was too late for Lisa.

"You're still human!" Ianto tried again, but Lisa was no longer listening.

"I am... disgusting. I have— I am... wrong."

"We can help you," Ianto promised, and Lisa's face almost appeared pleased, but the determination was far stronger.

"I must start again. Upgrade properly," she declared and Rose could see Ianto's heart-shattering in slow motion as he started to believe what they'd all been telling him.

"For god's sake, have you heard yourself? Lisa, please! I brought you here to heal you! So we could be together!"

She had a single purpose now though, only one path, and the Cyberman heard what she wanted to hear, just like her still human love. The irony was cruel

"Together. Yes. Transplant my brain into your body. The two of us together, fused. We'll be one complete person, isn't that what love is?"

"No..."

Rose doubted she would ever know if Ianto was answering Lisa's question, or if the single agony filled word had been a general statement of disbelief. A begging cry for mercy. A plea that what was now his reality be a nightmare that he could awaken from.

Whatever he had meant by the negative, it was not what the Cyberwoman had wanted to hear, and the threads of emotion that had stained her voice disappeared, returning it to the flattened and impartial tones of an intelligent machine.

"Then we are not compatible," she declared, and before anyone could move Ianto was being flung bodily across the hub, crashing into their small moat filled with water from the fountain above, unconscious.

Jack's was the first weapon aimed at Lisa, but the red arc of electricity she sent through his weapon had him crying out in pain and dropping the gun. Moments later he was shouting orders for them to strategically scatter, and Rose was on the move.

Part of her wanted to help Ianto, but the larger part of her said that she'd be no help to him dead, so she ran.

She heard Jack shout for Gwen. She heard Owen distract Lisa. Rose grabbed Tosh's elbow to propel the techie ahead of her and moved them both towards Jack's office.

The cold and now totally emotionless voice of the Cyberwoman followed after them.

"Run. We all ran."

Owen was the last of them to reach Jack's office, and the ex-time agent slammed the door closed behind the doctor in an attempt to slow Lisa's approach and muffle their voices.

"She's coming after us," Gwen shouted and Rose had to stifle a hysterical laugh when Owen, still breathless from the adrenaline-fueled run, gasped out a typically acidic response.

"Well, there's a surprise!"

Rose knew it was the man's way of coping, but Gwen had no patience for it and turned from the glass wall to snarl at the doctor.

"That's enough! We don't have time for bickering!" Rose growled, silencing them both and Jack took immediate advantage to begin issuing orders.

"This is a fight to the death. We do whatever is necessary to destroy her. Forget what Ianto said, that thing is no longer human. Clear?"

There was a round of agreements, before he turned on Rose, "What can you tell us about shutting down a Cyber unit?" he asked while digging through one of the draws on his desk.

"Emp weapons will fry the emotional inhibitor. Anything that damages the circuitry works too, but you'd need to get close enough. She should be easier to put down than a fully converted unit because we can damage the flesh beneath the cybernetics. Being only partially converted means that if we can do enough damage, there won't be enough left for the cybernetics to keep functioning," Rose reeled off quickly.

She didn't need to tell Jack that they were in serious trouble. That, despite what she'd said, even facing off against a lone cyber unit was beyond dangerous. He could read that much in her eyes, she knew, and agreed with nothing more than a grimace and a tightening of his jaw.

"Right," he said simply, accepting her words and turning to slide something small across the conference table towards Tosh.

"What's this?" she asked, already picking up the device and turning it over in her hands.

"It's something Suzie scavenged last year. She claimed that it could open any lock in forty-five seconds. I want you out the exit gates, up the emergency stairs, to reception," Jack ordered, his rushed words and both hands braced against the table told Rose just how concerned he was for his team, and she placed a reassuring hand on one tensed shoulder.

"She'll never open that door without power, it weighs a tonne!" Owen announced, but he fell silent again quickly when Rose met his eyes, forcing herself to stay calm.

"I'll go with her."

"No! I'm not leaving you all down here!" Tosh argued, eyes spinning around the room in concern.

"This is not a debate," Rose told her, suddenly very aware of the thudding sounds of Lisa's footsteps, but she pushed the sound of the Cyberwoman's approach aside, and all but ordered Jack to continue, "what's next?"

He nodded his thanks and pushed off from the table, moving around the room quickly to grab two long tubes as he spoke.

"Once you reach the reception, pull out the panel next to the desk. Take circuit three-five-seven from the main system and patch it to these." He handed the two long tubes to Rose, and it only took her a moment to figure out that they were, essentially, very advanced batteries and while Jack continued giving Tosh her instructions, Rose used a couple of hair ties to strap the tubes to her forearm, leaving her hands free to pull her gun.

"There should be enough power in those for what we need. Once the main circuit goes live, get outside, and meet us by the water tower."

Jack only paused long enough to make sure Tosh understood his instructions, before grabbing her and Rose by their upper arms and propelling them towards the office door furthest from Lisa with a sharp command of "Go!"

Neither of them hesitated. As they moved, they could hear him continue to issue rapid orders to Gwen and Owen, but Rose had her mission and it involved keeping the techie alive long enough to get them all to safety.

Tosh led the way with the door unlocker held close to her chest, and Rose had just jumped off the last step back into the main area, when she heard Jack hurtle out of the office above them, with Lisa hot on his heels.

The Cyberwoman didn't follow him along the catwalk, instead descending the same stairs Rose and Tosh had just come down, and Rose growled softly to herself even as Tosh pressed the unlocker to the door and the door of the hub, and the device began emitting frantic beeps.

She could hear Tosh whimper softly, muttering terrified encouragement to the alien lockpick, but Rose couldn't spare the focus to reassure the woman, he eyes fixed on the Cyberwoman as she moved slowly down the spiral staircase and steadily moved to stan near the centre of the hub, her head tilted back to stare around the vast space above her.

"This building belongs to me now. You will all be deleted." The emotionless voice sent chills up Rose's spine and although her fingers shifted on the grip of her weapon, she didn't remember having drawn it.

Jack placing himself in her line of fire, standing between Rose and the Cyber unit, was the only thing that halted her, finger already hovering over the trigger. The urge to shoot was almost overwhelming, but Rose didn't dare hit Jack.

"I'm sorry for what they did to you," Jack announced, his voice loud and clear and drawing the Cyber unit's entire attention, "but this ends here," he said, approaching Lisa one slow step at a time and Rose sucked in a nervous gasp.

'Too close! You're standing too close!' the warning was screaming through her mind, but she couldn't force the words out past her tongue fast enough. Her eyes widened with panic, but the next moment Jack was screaming, volts of electricity ran through his body and he dropped to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.