Jack sits, shaken, watching the screen, as people react to their deliverance.
He turns to the NTIs.
"Why? You could've done it. Why didn't you?"
The screen darkens. Then letters appears on it, slowly printing out, as if someone was clumsily typing them.
WE KNEW THIS WAS...
And we've seen this before so we know the rest...
WE KNEW THIS WAS A ONE WAY TICKET WHEN I PUT THIS THING ON. BUT YOU KNOW I HAD TO COME.
A pause, then:
LOVE YOU WIFE
The last message expands to fill the entire screen.
Jack stares at the screen, at his message of self-sacrifice, then at the aliens. They bow their heads, just for a moment. A sign of respect.
Jack begins to realize what has happened.
.
.
.
Ianto is slumped in a chair, just staring. Withdrawn.
The others are conserving oxygen and heat, huddling in the dark.
The air is looking pretty thick. The speaker of the hydrophone transceiver crackles to life.
McBride is yelling "Torchwood, do you read? This is Benthic Explorer, over."
John lunges at the mic "Hell yes, we read! Good of you to join us. How's that storm doin'?"
"Well, it's strange... it just kind've blew itself out all of the sudden. We're up here in a flat sea with no wind. But then a lot of weird things've been happening."
"Well, hell, son." John laughs "You better get us a line down here, we're in moderately poor shape."
LATER, Owen, John, and Monk are conferring B.G. on how to get a new
umbilical hooked on. Toshiko is talking to McBride on the hydrophone.
"They figure it was over a half mile high."
"I wish I could have seen it … "She glances down at the telemetry screen, seeing movement. "Hey. Hey! HEY! Look... it's Jack."
"That's impossible." Monk gasps.
Ianto bolts to the screen. Stares at the message printing out. A huge grin wraps around his face as he says incredulously "No it's not."
"What's it say?" McBride asks.
Ianto take the mike and sits before the screen. During the message, his voice will go through an emotional spectrum from confusion to wonder, to a childlike joy.
"It says...
"JAX HARKNESS BACK ON THE AIR/HAVE SOME NEW FRIENDS DOWN HERE/I GUESS THEYVE BEEN HERE AWHILE/THEYVE LEFT US ALONE BUT IT BOTHERS THEM TO SEE US HURTING EACH OTHER/GETTING OUT OF HAND LATELY"
Ianto grins as he reads the next part...
"THEY SENT A MESSAGE/HOPE YOU GOT IT"
"I'd say that's a big 10-4, Jack." John laughs.
"THEY WANT US TO GROW UP A BIT AND PUT AWAY CHILDISH THINGS/OF COURSE ITS JUST A SUGGESTION."
.
.
.
BENTHIC EXPLORER BRIDGE
Beyond the windows the ocean is calm. The sky steel-gray put placid. McBride turns to Commodore DeMarco and the Navy contingent, his eyebrows cocked.
"Looks like you boys might beout of business."
Bendix calls out "Something's going on down there. I'm getting some big readings..."
Bendix is hunched over the sonar, and we can see the screens lit up like a Wurlitzer.
.
.
.
In Torchwood the crew becomes aware of a strange subsonic rumbling. The sonar is going crazy. Toshiko puts the headphones of her passive sonar rig up to her ear, then jerks it away. "Whew! Whatever this is, it's major."
The rumbling increases and a glow diffuses the water.
The glow intensifies until a blinding shaft of light blasts through the viewport, bathing the whole interior in a cold white radiance.
A last message appears on the screen:
KEEP YOU PANTYS ON/YOURE GONNA LOVE THIS
The radiance intensifies. Everyone covers their eyes. It flares to
WHITE-OUT.
.
.
.
EXPLORER BRIDGE
Bendix and the bridge crew are going nuts. All their instruments are pegged.
"Active is pinging back something big... it's enormous! Coming up right under us."
"Where?" DeMarco barks.
"Where? EVERYWHERE!" Bendix looks out the window "Over there! Port bow."
A depression appears in the surface of the sea a hundred yards off, not swirling down like a whirlpool, just dimpling down.
It gets wider. Deeper. Rapidly becomes a yawning pit.
The ocean is OPENING.
Now the surface is churned by turbulence. Slow massive roils of tremendous power boil up from the depths.
McBride leads a mass exodus onto the deck to see better.
The open becomes a roaring maw a hundred yards across.
The ships are like toys on the shimmering rim of the maelstrom.
SOMETHING RISES IN THE CENTER OF THE OPENING. A massive spire. Smoothly curving and iridescent. Off the starboard beam, a quarter mile away, another spire rises. Tons of seawater fall from its sides with a THUNDEROUS ROAR, the energy of Niagara.
Off the port bow... another spire.
And another, beyond the destroyer Albany, dwarfing it.
Six towers... plus one larger, in the center. Rising.
One the Explorer's deck, a shadow engulfs them as the nearest spire blocks out the sun. The air, the sea, the deck... all vibrate with the THUNDER OF CREATION.
And now for the payoff shot: WE'RE HIGH, LOOKING DOWN. THE SPIRES FORM A PERFECT RING A MILE ACROSS. A VAST DARK FORM, LIKE A GREAT SHADOW, RISES FROM THE DEPTHS BENEATH THE SHIPS. THE SPIRES ARE CONNECTED. IT IS ALL ONE.
THE NTI ARK.
It surfaces with slow majesty, gently beaching all the ships on its broad back. We recognize it as the structure into which Jack was led by the angelic being, which we assumed was a city. The Explorer rocks gently on its flat hull, clunking massively to one side as it settles.
The bridge crew watch millions of tons of seawater streaming off the back of the vast, slightly curved hull. The missile cruiser rocks back and forth nearby, high and dry... its prop whining futility.
ON EXPLORER'S DECK, McBride, Bendix, DeMarco, the rest of the Navy
contingent... they're all standing there open-mouthed, in a dream-like daze. Touched by the hand of God.
"Look.." Bendix points.
WHAT THEY SEE - Fifty yards away, between them and the Albany, sits Torchwood Two. It looks like a particularly ugly and unwanted toy, sitting on the glistening plain of the NTI Ark's hull.
The TRIMODULE C hatch at the bottom opens.
John's feet appear, bicycling. He swings down to the pearlescent 'deck'. Stands there blinking in the sunlight, mole-like. Jammer plonks down behind him. He turns, lifts Ianto down. Owen, Sonny, and the rest, emerge into the light of the sun. A deliverance from the blackest night they will ever know.
"We should be dead. We didn't decompress." Ianto says with shock.
"Our blood oughta be fizzin' like a warm, shook-up Coke." John agrees.
"They must've done something to us" Owen shrugs.
Ianto has tears streaming down his cheeks... for the sun, for life, for their deliverance and the larger one he knows has happened, an epiphany for the whole human race.
"Oh, yes. I think you could say that."
He blinks. Seeing something not far away. He gives a little laugh, or something between laughing and crying.
Jack is walking up the curving incline of one of the mouth-like enterances to the NTI structure. His suit is casually unzipped and the FBS helmet dangles from one hand jauntily.
Ianto starts toward him. Breaks into a run. Then stops a few feet from him.
Jack is watching him come to him. His smile, his eyes illuminating him.
Ianto stops and he touches him, lightly. Is this real? They look at each other, wonderingly a moment.
Then laugh.
Ianto sniffs loudly. "Hello, Captain Harkness."
"Hello, Dr. Harkness." Jack whispers "Wifey!"
Their lips meet.