Rose came back around slowly.
Every part of her hurt. Her arm, her side, her head. She could hear voices talking and laughter, and if it weren't for the god awful stench surrounding her with every breath, she'd have thought the last day nothing more than a vivid nightmare.
Slowly she forced her eyes open, wincing at the harsh light, and she shuddered at the feel of fresh and dried blood clinging to her skin, trailing across her body.
Carefully, she looked around and spotted Ianto. He was still out cold, so she continued to move her eyes around the room, looking for something she could use to cut her bonds. There were more people in the house now, and Rose was sharply reminded of how empty the village had been.
The whole community must have been part of it, or else it would never have stayed a secret, she realised suddenly. Someone would have discovered something. Raised the alarm, alerted the police, and Rose shivered again at the thought of an entire town of cannibals.
It wasn't even as though she could justify the behaviour in her own mind by saying that it was because they were another species, with a different culture. Alien. They weren't. No, these were just sick and seriously damaged human beings.
The door crashed open, and made her frame jerk in surprise, a whimper escaping her as pain exploded across her body at the sudden movement. It was quickly followed by another pained groan as she spotted Tosh, Gwen and Owen being pushed across the living room, just beyond the plastic barrier that marked the edge of the slaughter room.
"Who are these people?" Tosh asked, and as Rose struggled to sit up again she could feel her muscles trembling with pain, sweat gathering across her face at the effort of moving through the agony.
"This is our village!" The woman who had helped knock Rose and Ianto out told them, with a soft giggle to her voice.
"The villagers are dead!" Gwen shouted. Her voice shook, and Rose could see her whole frame trembling violently from where she sat, but Gwen's shouted denial only made the group laugh harder, and Tosh shook her head.
"No, they're all involved. They've all been doing it," she gasped, finally beginning to wrap her head around the nightmare they were standing in the middle of.
"This is our harvest," the man who seemed to lead them said slowly, as though explaining it to a small child.
Gwen let loose a sound that was somewhere between a terrified laugh and a sob of fear, and bile rose in the back of Rose's throat in response to the simplicity of the man's statement.
"Only in the bloody countryside," Owen sneered, and despite the terror running through her, Rose couldn't stop herself smiling at the doctor's words, "you sick fuckers."
She knew that insulting them wouldn't help, but somehow just hearing someone else condemn their actions helped to bolster Rose's own courage.
Gwen screamed as all three were dragged into the slaughterhouse, and she was thrown against the wall while Tosh and Owen were made to kneel.
Seeing Rose, Gwen crawled to her side. Rose let the woman curl around her, let her cry against her shoulder, but she kept her glaring gaze on the ringleader defiantly, as she forced a mask over the agony that Gwen's tight hold was igniting.
"Are you okay?" Gwen whispered by her ear, forcing the words past her genuine tears as the man moved away, and Rose pressed her lips together for a moment.
"Been better," she admitted weakly and turned her eyes on Owen and Tosh.
"Where's Ianto? What have you done with him!" Tosh shouted, but before Rose could reassure the woman, the ringleader was picking up Ianto's unconscious form, grinning at them as he showed off their teammate's blood-soaked face.
Rose suspected that the blow to her own head had made a similar mess, and swallowed down the bile in her throat again.
"Wake up, man," the cannibal growled, slapping Ianto until his eyes snapped open with a socked grunt, coming face to face with Owen and Tosh.
"Time to be bled!" The man sang softly, and Rose watched her team freeze in shock, horror, and fear as their reality began to sink in.
"Like veal," the man continued, and Ianto began sobbing. "It takes a long time, but it definitely makes the meat taste better."
"No," Rose growled, and the man turned on her, picking up a large butcher's knife.
"No?" He repeated, and Rose struggled to her knees, her movement forcing Gwen to release her hold.
Jack was still out there, and Rose knew he wouldn't be giving up on any of them. They just needed to buy the Captain enough time.
"Owen's right, you're all just sick, twisted bastards," Rose snarled, her frame shaking as all eyes landed on her. "Too weak and cowardly to take any of us on in a fair fight," she continued, watching the amusement in the man's eyes grow cold, as anger took its place.
"Standing toe to toe with you, uninjured, I'd have our positions reversed in under a minute," she goaded.
Pain exploded across her face, and she heard Owen draw a hissed breath between his teeth as the leader backhanded her, sending Rose crashing back to the ground, but she didn't stop, rolling onto her back as he approached.
"You're nothing! Worthless scum from some shitty little countryside village! I could have you wiped off the map and no one would even know you were gone!" Rose continued baiting the man, but despite her facade of bravery, when his fingers wrapped into her hair and he pulled her onto her knees to hold the butcher's knife against her throat, she couldn't stop a soft cry of terror from escaping her lips, and the first flood of tears leaking from her eyes.
"I could make this quick, virtually painless, but I think I'm going to enjoy making you suffer first," the man drawled, calm despite the fury in his face.
The room was silent. Her team was shocked, and the cannibals were angry, and Rose knew that his words had been heard by everyone, just as clearly as her own gasped and half-smothered sobs.
In that same silence, the cutlery on the living room table began to shake and tremble, rattling against each other as something approached the building.
The ringleader threw Rose to the floor with a growl.
"What now?" The cannibals' leader demanded, throwing Rose roughly to the floor, and the gathered villagers moved to one side of the building, weapons aimed at the door as Owen made use of his unrestrained hands to help Rose off her stomach and into a sitting position.
"You crazy bitch," he muttered, letting her lean against him as they all turned to watch whatever was making the loud rumbling sound that had the villagers so concerned.
"Jack," Rose whispered, drawing Owen's gaze for a moment before he seemed to catch onto what she was saying, and Rose could feel him tense in anticipation.
"What the fuck?" The cannibal leader muttered, before the entire front of the building caved in, a tractor ploughing through the rotting wood, and chaos erupted inside the building as gunfire rang out.
The explosion of bullets was loud and fast, and the captured Torchwood team ducked low to the ground almost simultaneously, taking cover so that Jack knew who he was shooting at.
In what seemed like seconds and hours all at the same time, Jack had managed to incapacitate every member of the village, and Rose stared at him for a long moment, before remembering that only days before she'd playfully called him her hero.
She spotted the movement of someone in a police uniform reaching for a gun and sucked in a breath to shout and warn her friend, but Jack had already seen the danger and growled, bouncing on the balls of his feet, ready to move and react at a moment's notice.
"Oh, really?" He snarled, and it was clear he had no patience left as he raised his pistol and pulled the trigger without an ounce of hesitation, the bullet shattering the man's hand, and the officer recoiled with a shout of pain.
Seeing everyone down, Owen had already untied Tosh and was working on Rose while the technician moved to help Gwen free Ianto, but Rose barely took her eyes off Jack.
Jack leant down and grabbed the ringleader by his collar before he pressed his gun under the man's jaw with a dark snarl plastered across his face.
Rose pulled her hands free from the rope Owen had loosened quickly and stretched a hand out as though she could stop Jack from across the room.
"No! Jack, don't do it," she pleaded, tears of relief and pain still tracking their way down her face, and she was entirely unable to stop her eyes from continuing to produce more, her sobs only just held at bay through sheer force of will. Her hands shook, but Jack didn't turn to look at her when he answered.
"These people don't deserve warnings!" He shouted back, fury evident in every line of his body.
"No, they don't," she agreed, "I've seen monsters, Jack, but these people are something else."
He looked up at her then, her shaking voice finally pulling his gaze across the room, and she watched his own hand begin to shake as he took in her injuries and his anger blazed higher.
"Don't become like them, Jack," Rose whispered, "please, please, don't let them win like this."
There was a long moment of silence as Rose held his gaze. She could see the choice, hovering there on the knife's edge. They'd hurt his team, they'd hurt her, more than that, they'd scared her, and she knew he wanted nothing more than to wipe them from existence, but he also wanted to be better than that and she could see the struggle in his face.
"Let me question him?" Gwen asked, her voice shaking as she staggered over to kneel beside the Captain, her hand on his shoulder tentatively, and Jack's gaze flicked from Rose to Gwen.
"I have to understand, Jack. I want to know why. Otherwise, this? This is too much," she tried to explain. Rose saw Jack's jaw tighten, and sighed, dropping herself back to the floor. Frustration was replacing the anger, and that meant he was probably about to surrender to their requests.
"They're injured," Tosh said. "They need to go to a hospital, not be questioned."
Rose didn't think they deserved a hospital before being questioned, but she still had her eyes locked on Jack. He might be swaying toward justice over vengeance, but Rose also knew that if he had a moment without being witnessed, he was still close enough to the edge to take the shot.
"Owen, you can control the bleeding and then phone the police," Gwen insisted, before returning her focus to the Captain. "Jack, please. Give me an hour with him. Don't tell me you don't want to know too?" She asked, and the hand resting on his shoulder tugged at him gently.
Rose saw the shaking in his frame increase as he fought with the dark desires whispering in his mind, and his eyes moved from Gwen back to Rose. She gave him a single nod, and he pulled back the gun, shoving the leader to the floor in disgust and surrendering, reluctantly, to his team's wishes.
The Doctor had moved back through the sewers to the genetic laboratory in the base of the Empire State Building at a steady pace, and while he wasn't running this time his long legs carried him swiftly towards the last Dalek and it wasn't long before his strides left the humans behind.
When he walked back into the lab once more, he was alone, and somehow he found that fitting. The last Time Lord facing the last Dalek. Alone.
He found it wired into a control mainframe, and felt himself come to a stop. The silence held for a long moment as the two of them stared at one another. One more Dalek and the Time War would end once and for all, but the Doctor didn't know if he could destroy an entire species. Not even the Daleks.
Not again.
'No more death,' echoed around his mind. 'No more.'
"Now what?" He asked, his voice oddly calm considering the maelstrom in his head, and the myriad of emotions he'd cycled through since landing in 1930.
He stood facing the Dalek with his legs tensed and arms at his sides, ready to dodge, ready to run, ready for everything and not ready at all for what might happen next.
"You will be exterminated!" Came the anticipated reply, and he couldn't stop the nonchalance in his answer, having heard the cry one too many times that day already.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just think about it, Dalek... What was your name?" He snapped, glaring across the room, his expression demanding an answer.
"Dalek Caan."
"Dalek Caan," he repeated, pushing back his coat just enough to slide his hands into his trouser pockets and, one determined step at a time, the Doctor forced himself to walk towards his living nightmare.
"Your entire species has been wiped out. And now, the Cult of Skaro has been eradicated. Leaving only you," he told the creature, his voice deceptively soft, and chillingly cold. He couldn't lie to himself, there was a small, dark corner of his mind that wanted Caan to feel as alone as he did, and he hated himself for that.
Coming to a slow stop before the Dalek, he drew a steadying breath before continuing and forcing himself to live up to his name, ignoring the worst parts of himself.
"Right now you're facing the only man in the universe who might show you some compassion," he warned, hating himself for this too, because what kind of man forgave the kinds of atrocities that the Daleks had committed?
Dalek Caan was clearly listening to him, the eyestalk whirring and turning left and right as it seemed to seek a way to escape, but it was still wired into the control unit and without additional Daleks to disconnect him, Caan was going nowhere.
"I've just witnessed one genocide," the Doctor told him, before shaking his head. Grief at the loss of those part Gallifreyan people filling his chest, "I won't be the cause of another."
He swallowed, forcing the next words past his lips and, hoping that he wouldn't regret this decision, he offered the Dalek one final chance.
"Caan, let me help you. What do you say?"
"Emergency temporal shift!" Dalek Caan cried, and the Doctor let loose a loud and furious shout of denial, lunging for Caan, but he was too slow and the Dalek disappeared into the vortex.
The Dalek had been silent. It had let him talk, and talk, so it could gather enough energy for the shift, and that self-hatred for not noticing sooner settled into the Doctor's hearts, just a little deeper than before as he stared at the now disconnected wires.
"Doctor!"
He heard Martha call for him, and closed his eyes. He pushed back the anger that he knew would be sparking in his gaze right then, and he let his hands uncurl from the tense fists they'd formed in his fury. He set aside the hatred, for himself and the Dalek, so that he could focus on the human calling his name.
"Doctor!" Martha shouted again, and he turned, jaw still clenched tight, to see the medical student and Tallulah almost carrying Laszlo into the lab between them.
"He's sick," she called over, seeing that she had his attention, and the Doctor ordered his mind to focus on the next task.
He quickly moved towards the three of them as Laszlo's strength finally failed. He collapsed to the floor, struggling for breath, and Tallulah went down with him, cradling the man in her arms.
Martha waited until he crouched beside them, forearms on his knees and fingers linked together loosely before she gave him any more information.
"It's his heart," she explained, "it's racing like mad. I've never seen anything like it," she told him, and the Doctor fought the urge to roll his eyes.
She'd never seen anything like it because she'd never encountered a human-animal gene splice before, but he didn't bother answering her, running his gaze over Laszlo's form instead while his mind threw together several dozen chemical solutions that might stabilize the man's state.
'No more death,' his mind whispered again. Pleaded. 'No more.'
"What is it, Doctor? What's the matter with him?" The showgirl pleaded, tears in her voice as she glanced between him and Laszlo, desperate for answers but equally desperate not to tear her gaze from the man she loved.
"He says he can't breathe, what is it?" Her eyes were wide and terrified, and the Doctor felt his throat tighten as his mind raced faster for an answer to Laszlo's predicament.
"It's time, sweetheart," Laszlo gasped bravely, and Tallulah shook her head. Not understanding, or not willing to understand.
"What do you mean, time? What are you talking about?" She asked tearfully, and Laszlo struggled to get enough air to answer her.
"None of the slaves survived for long. Most of them only lived for a few weeks," he told her, and the Doctor brought his clasped hands up to his face, frowning over his knuckles at Laszlo as he mentally discarded another potential compound as a failure.
There had to be a way to stabilize the man, he knew there had to be, but it was a matter of finding the correct combination in time and he frantically pushed more and more calculations through his mind.
"I was lucky," Laszlo continued. "I held on because I had you, he explained to her, offering a weak smile, adoration written all over his face as he gazed up at the blond, "but now... I'm dying, Tallula."
"No, you're not," she told him sharply, tears beginning to leak from her eyes. "Not now, after all this!"
And then she turned on the Doctor, her face crumpling in unrestrained grief and fear.
"Doctor, can't you do sumthin'?" She begged, and he remembered that this woman had stared out the oncoming storm. Had been willing to march into the dark sewers alone for this man, and had faced the Daleks with less fear than in her eyes than there was at that moment.
"Oh Tallulah, with three L's and an H," he breathed, finally beginning to narrow down the list of ingredients and materials he needed as he answered her, voice determined, "just you watch me."
No. More. Death. Not today.
"What do I need?" He shouted, throwing off his long coat to free up his movements and letting his eyes seek out the materials he'd isolated in his mind, "Ohhh, I don't know, how about a great big genetic laboratory? Oh, look! I've got one!"
He moved around the room, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he prepared to save Laszlo the only way he knew how, at the last minute.
He grabbed a tray of tools, bottles of various chemicals that he knew were in the lab from his work with Sec earlier and started mixing, and as he did he let his mouth have free reign, babbling a mile a minute to give all of them something else to focus on.
"Laszlo! Just you hold on. There's been too many deaths today," he declared, mind buzzing and ordering his hands to stir, and shake, and pour. Throwing together the life-saving solution while he gave a hope raising speech that Rose would have been proud of.
"Way too many people have died. Brand new creatures," he said thinking of the Gallifreyan-Dalek-Humans, "wise old men," he continued, with Solomon smiling in his mind, "and age old enemies," he finished, grimacing at the memory of the Daleks exploding.
"And I'm telling you, I'm telling you right now, I'm not having one more death! You got that? No more! Not one!" He shouted, filling a syringe with the bubbling, smoking formulae he'd mixed together and marched over to the failing man.
"Tallulah, out of the way," he ordered, unable to resist a well-placed pun despite the seriousness of the situation, and grinned as Martha pulled the blonde away from Laszlo.
"The Doctor is in."
"The whole village was involved?" Gwen asked a short time later.
Jack and Rose stood by the bar, watching and listening as Gwen asked her questions, in part for moral support, but both of them had wanted to be on hand in case things went sideways.
As the ex-police officer interrogated the cannibal leader, a man they now knew was called Evan Thomas, he did little beyond sit quietly on one of the pub chairs, handcuffed to his seat as he stared blankly at the opposite wall.
At Gwen's question, he blinked slowly, eyes moving to her blood-splattered face and answered slowly, his voice a casual drawl.
"Every generation. Our tradition," he confirmed before his eyes slid back to the wood-panelled wall and he returned to silence.
The slump of his shoulders and half-sneer on his lips made Rose think of her cousins when they'd had a toy taken away from them. Sickness crawled up the back of her throat forcing her to swallow hard, and she grabbed Jack's hand in her own, appreciating the reassuring squeeze he gave her in return.
"Once a decade," Evan continued, when Gwen didn't fire off another question at him, but his eyes were glazed and distant as he stared at something they couldn't see. "Target those travelling through those most likely to disappear—"
"And butcher them," Gwen finished, not even bothering to keep her disgust from her face, and Evan's eyes slowly slid back to her. He didn't try to defend his actions, and with another gut-wrenching realisation, Rose understood. They'd known what they had been doing was malevolent, and twisted. They just hadn't cared.
"What sort of people are you that you wake up in the morning and think, 'this is what I'm going to do'?" Gwen demanded.
Her question got no answer, and the way the man shifted his jaw and sniffed disdainfully said louder than anything else what he thought of them.
That he believed so strongly that they didn't deserve such an explanation hit Rose like a physical blow. This man believed that he owed them nothing more than a farmer owed his cow. Less than that, probably, and she could feel her hands beginning to shake again.
"Why'd you do it?" Gwen asked, her voice low and quiet, but her stare never wavered and Rose had to hand it to the woman, she wasn't sure she could have made herself meet and hold Evan's gaze after the night they'd all just been through.
It was hard enough to stand there and just listen, but the blows had just kept coming.
He didn't answer her prompting, keeping his lips sealed tight this time, and Rose could feel herself tensing. He knew that Gwen wanted, even needed, answers and he was denying her that intentionally. Just because he could. But Gwen continued prodding at him, her voice soft and relentless.
"Come one. Make me understand," she challenged, her tone daring him to try and convince her.
"Why do you care?" Evan asked, features unmoving, and Gwen leant forward towards him abruptly, eyes flashing, and Rose couldn't smother her flinch at the sudden movement. Jack straightened in his seat beside her, but neither of them interrupted their friend.
"I have seen things you would never believe, and this is the only thing I can't understand," Gwen all but hissed at him, but Evan just seemed amused.
He turned to stare at Jack then, letting his lips twist into the deceptively gentle smile that sent shivers up Rose's spine, before he turned back to Gwen, the grin slipping into a vicious smirk.
"So keep on wondering," he told her smugly, like a shark sensing blood in the water.
He knew he had something that she wanted, and Rose could see the pleasure he was getting in denying Gwen her answers and Rose couldn't stand to watch anymore.
She stood up sharply and turned away. Paced to the far side of the pub and shoved her shaking hands into the pockets of her jacket, wincing as the movement jarred her injured side just as Gwen lost her calm control and snapped.
"Tell me! I need to know why!" Gwen shouted, and Rose heard Jack rise to his feet as well. Instead of moving away, he stepped closer to Gwen and Evan and Rose glanced back over her shoulder to watch what Jack was planning to do.
"That's enough. Time to go," he announced, voice quiet but firm, but Evan's voice moved through the stale air in the room once more, freezing everyone in place.
"I'll tell you something, if you let me whisper," the monster offered Gwen, and Rose spun around fully, taking just one furious step towards him before she halted her movements.
Jack had to have been similarly furious that the degenerate was trying to barter with Gwen, because he'd quickly grabbed a handful of Evan's jacket at the scruff of his neck, and had half hauled him out of his sear, before Gwen slammed her hand down on the table, making Jack freeze.
"Gwen," Rose cautioned softly, but the brunette ignored her and Rose heard her offer a soft agreement to Evan.
Despite not wanting to be anywhere near him, Rose approached the trio, slowly and on quiet feet as he leaned into Gwen, drawing out this one last moment he'd bartered for.
Rose didn't want to know his reasons. She didn't care what he'd told himself to justify the nightmare they'd experienced, and her heart broke for all their many victims, but something made her strain her hearing as Gwen's hair blocked his lips.
Something made her utilise the enhanced senses she'd gained from her time inside the void to make out the words Evan whispered oh-so-softly into Gwen's ear, and she instantly regretted it.
"'Cos it made me happy."
Rose knew Jack had dragged the grinning man from the pub, and that Gwen had been frozen at the table, her face a mask of genuine horror, but she paid them no attention, too busy seeking out the nearest place to throw up.