This is a very short chapter, but the next one is very long. I've realised most of the Utopia/Sound of Drums arc is quite short, but I'm not inclined to make them longer at this point or join them together so they'd remain as they are for now.

I've now named all the chapters and will be re-uploading all the chapters prior to this at some point including the new chapter titles and they might also have things like English edits :)

Please be aware, I do not have a beta reader and I do miss basic things like using source instead of sauce and similar homophone mistakes - mostly because I wasn't taught the original definition of the words and I originally thought there was only one spelling of words like cause and sauce and I am still trying to wrap my head around which definition belongs with which spelling. I am doing my best but I am dyslexic, I am 23 and this is a little late to be learning basic definitions like that and getting them to stick while also staying on top of my life.

Chapter Thirty-eight: Back to the Beginning

Raven woke with a start, her eyes darting to the cloak and date on the computer as well as the news and the recording which told her that the spheres hadn't descended and the Master had been stopped – Jack was currently hang-cuffing the Time Lord. Muting her own com, Raven turned away from the electronics and grabbed the wastebasket before violently being sick.

She'd died – a bullet to the chest at the orders of the Master.

Destroying the Paradox reversed back time to just after the death of the President, which also meant that everyone not at the heart of the paradox had their memories of the last year taken. Only those on the valiant should have remembered. She'd died, she didn't know what had happened to her body in those last moments but she'd woken up back in the base, which means that she shouldn't have remembered anything. But that wasn't the case.

Deciding to put her mental breakdown to the side for the moment, Raven turned back to the screen in time to see the Master's wife shoot the Master.

Knowing that the world had been watching the death of the President, Raven got on the phone and started organising with UNIT a team to take command of the de-briefing of the soldiers that had been forced to work for the Master under threat of their own lives and the lives of their families (who had been detained in camps), the psychological support they were all going to need on touching ground, the protocol to get the Doctor and the TARDIS safely to the ground along with the Master's body and to have the lot of them left alone but for a very brief interview and debrief with one commander which she named. The UNIT team was one that comprised of international members (American, French and German) under the command of a British General who had worked under the Brigadier back in the day.

"Jack, Martha, Doctor," Raven spoke softly as the Doctor's grief turned quiet. "I've got a team coming to the Valiant. They are there for debrief and to ensure that all soldiers present go through psychological deprogramming and therapy. They've been told to get only a brief statement from you and to release the Master into your custody. Martha, your family will go with you but will have to prove a minimum of thirty hours therapy each over the next three months. Doctor, they have the capacity to take the TARDIS to ground if you need them to depending on the damage she had taken."

"I haven't checked her for damage." The Doctor answered, lowering the Master's body gentle to the ground. "Jack?"

"Um… you might be able to get her into the vortex?" Jack suggested hesitantly.

"Alright, captain Fraultan wait here for UNIT to take command. I advise that you disarm yourselves until after debrief. Martha, do you want to bring your family onboard for a little while? We won't be travelling anywhere, just flying away from people while I prepare and preform funeral rights?" the Doctor looked questioningly to his companion.

Martha looked to her family who had been huddled close together, hugging each other and at Martha's pleading look they nodded their agreement.

"I'll make sure Leo gets home safe and the hunt on him is over and the wanted posters out on you is rescinded as well as all arrest warrants." Raven promised.

"Thank you, Overwatch." Martha responded automatically.

"Cute," Raven teased as she'd wanted to the first time that she'd gained the title of Overwatch. "Jack, when will you be home?"

"As soon as the TARDIS is back to working order. Four days," Jack took a guess having been the only one to currently see the damage to the TARDIS.

"Alright, I'll be calling the others home now that I have proof the Prime Minister isn't right for this country. So, I won't be running this base alone as of tomorrow night." Raven assured. "Take your time to help the Doctor and come home when you're ready. If you need a little more time after that, then take it, Jack. You've given enough to us for the last hundred years."

"Raven, are you okay?" Jack picked something up in her voice.

"It's just my stomach. I'll have Owen check me over when he gets back." Raven said gentle. "I'll be okay, I am okay. You look after yourself - go take a long bath before diving into the mechanics of the TARDIS."

"That bath would be better with you in it love, you sure you can't fly up and join us?" Jack looked up and winked at the camera closest to him where he knew that Raven was still watching.

"Jack, you are on an open com and surrounded by people who are only hearing you." Martha sighed, a smile turning up her mouth.

"I'll join you in a bath when you come home. See you soon, love." Raven promised.

"I'll hold you to it."

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* Jan 15th *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

Raven kept on top of the situation with the Valiant and the people who'd now all been taken off it even as her team returned to Torchwood. When they first came back to Cardiff they arrived at the base late at night, looking disgruntled and exhausted.

"Welcome back," Raven greeted softly from her desk which she hadn't ventured far form that day. She knew that the moment she stopped working, she was going to have to think about the last year and the fact that she died. She had no idea how Jack handled coming back from the dead as often as he did, but if he felt even half of what she did then she worried that he wasn't handling it at all.

"That was a waste of fucking time! What the hell happened?" Owen snapped throwing his bag against the side of his desk before he jumped on, he slumped on his chair.

"Prime Minister Saxon was an alien known as the Master who sent Torchwood in to a trap so he could kill us as he began his world domination. You've got reports on your desks." Raven hadn't included everything in the reports, just enough that they would know what happened in the last year based off the reports of the people who came from the Valiant. As Jack had been involved, it had been a Torchwood mater so the team should be briefed, but she didn't want them to have all the details and she was sure that Jack wouldn't want them to have all the details either.

"The year that never was?" Tosh questioned, opening the report and looking at its name.

"Time is a funny thing. Apparently, the Master controlled the planet for a year after killing Torchwood. Jack, alongside the Doctor and his companion had a plan. The reports say that without the Doctor's companion he never would have been able to stop the Master, but stop the man they did. and, in the process they did something that reversed time back a complete year. Making everyone who wasn't on the Valiant at the time, forget." Raven summarised the report for them.

"If Jack was involved, why isn't he back?" Gwen demanded with a frown – the only one who didn't open the report to start skim reading.

"He's still with the Doctor and Martha Jones, he did touch base. He'll be back." Raven chose not to give them a possible time because she just didn't know if the four-day estimate would be right. The Jones family had been returned minus Martha who was saying goodbye to the Doctor before staying to look after her family. Jack had phoned to say that the TARDIS was functional but not completely returned to normal so he was going to stay and help but, as it was a time machine, he'd asked the Doctor to return him four days after he left. Whether he actually arrived on the 18th or not would be another matter.

"It says here that the last surviving Torchwood agent, code named Overwatch, a young female with black hair was brought on board with Martha Jones. She appears to have been the second of Captain Jack Harkness and his lover, and was the last person killed before time was reversed." Ianto read from the report before looking up. "That was you. You managed to survive the whole year."

"Torchwood agent Overwatch is reported to have worked to save many civilians from the camps that had been set up across the planet, working to shield Martha Jones as she completed her mission for the Doctor. There were many rumours of Overwatch placing herself in physical danger and fighting the spheres, named Toclafane, while covering the retreats of the children and civilians she had saved. Her last words were reported to be a direct insult towards the Master, informing him that he was not important." Owen finished with a whistle. "Our little Raven, a bad ass."

"That's a me that never existed." Raven pointed. "I have no idea how bad it had gotten or what I was forced to do, but from what that report says, it sounds like it was hell."

"We didn't even make it past day one of this year we haven't lived." Owen snorted. "So, Jack's coming back?"

"That's the plan," Raven confirmed.

"And what's the plan until he is back?" Tosh asked.

"Keep the people of Cardiff safe, monitor the rift, contain alien threats, monitor and contain the weevil population. Keep moving forward." Raven shrugged. Just because Jack wasn't there didn't mean that they were doing anything different.