I'm so so so sorry!! I know it's been more than a month, and I can only grovel for your forgiveness. BUT on the plus side, this is not just an AN (well, obviously this is, but what I mean is that the chapter isn't)! It is, in fact, the (very) long awaited fifth chapter of Rift Fire!! And it's a pretty full chapter, too – we have dragons, the rift, Jess/John (hinted) romance, and a guest cameo by the Tardis.

Did any of you know I have Livejournal, Fictionpress and Muse Bunny account now? I do. Go check 'em out if you want.

Dedicated for all of you patient peoples for not harassing me to get off my lazy arse and write.

Disclaimer: (: I'm back, but I still don't own Torchwood!

Confrontation

Third person

Jess felt the real world return with a snap. She had been unaware of her time floating in the rift. There was just… nothing. Not emptiness, which would be an absence of something, but nothing. She then registered how quiet it was, and sat up to look around.

Jess

The first thing I noticed was the smell of singed hub. The second thing was the silence. It wasn't actual silence, of course – in a base filled with computers and two animals there is always some background noise – but this was a silence as in a lack of voices. There was no one in the hub. I sat up slowly, unsure of how my body would react after… however long I'd spent in the rift. There was a piece of paper on the table, and I recognised Gwen's looped scrawl.

Jess,

The rift left you but it's now causing havoc in town. We'll be back as soon as we've sorted it.

Oh, no, they didn't, did they? They honestly thought they could tackle the rift by themselves?

You know they can't, don't you?

Who said that?

Who do you think?

If you're the rift, you have an appointment downtown terrorising the rest of the team.

You think I can't be in two places at once, when I've spent millennia across the whole of time and space?

Fair point. (Hang on, why am I having a logical conversation with Rift?) Go away.

You have to leave me be. No one can stop me.

Don't listen.

How many people are in my head?!

I'm the Tardis. Rift's cousin in time.

You've lost me.

Twin entities. Beings made of time and energy itself. And, not to be rude or anything, but could you get a handle on this quickly? I'm in the middle of flying my friend away from an attacking alien fleet.

Okay… I think. But what do you have to do with me?

You need to fight Rift. You can be stronger. You have to try, for the sake of the world.

Then my head felt empty. On the plus side, I could concentrate without transcendental beings interrupting my thoughts by arguing, but on the downside I couldn't come up with any good plans. I sat back down on the floor and tried to think. How could you fight something that spanned space and time? More to the point, how could I fight something that spanned space and time? I couldn't fight anything – not without losing, anyhow. I really needed a plan – preferably one that would work, but right now any plan seemed brilliant – and I needed it fast.

Overhead, the dragon gave a half-roar, half-sigh.

……………………

John

The rift was like flickering light, randomly lashing out to strike at building – and occasionally people. When that happened it wasn't nice to watch. Like someone being burned to death from the inside out. The energy from the rift was at least concentrated into one area, which made containing it slightly easier. But we had no way of dealing with it – even I was out of ideas.

Ianto

It takes a lot to surprise me these days. I think the last thing to truly surprise me was when I saw John being nice (I still think I might have hallucinated that). But I think I can categorically say that none of us were expecting what happened next. A ray of sunshine broke through the thick cloud cover, and what it illuminated was truly shocking.

Glittering bronze in the brief sunbeam, even more spectacular than before, was the dragon. Balanced on is back, clinging to its neck, was a small figure. We could all guess who. The dragon hovered for a few seconds before swooping elegantly through the shimmering air towards the centre point of the rift.

John

Jess. She was crazy – or suicidal. And again I wanted to protect her – to stop her before she got herself killed.

The dragon darted forward, jinking and weaving to avoid the rift's power spikes. Jess had to have been controlling that – dragons weren't renowned for having that much brain. The pair of them stopped a few feet from the bright glowing heart of the rift. Then Jess let go of the dragon's neck, stretched her hands out to the rift…

No! The rift's light enveloped her again. This time it was worse to watch. When it had happened before she wasn't balanced on a dragon's back in mid-air. When it had happened before she hadn't been weakened from several days by the rift. The worst thing, however, was that the last time it had happened she hadn't done it on purpose.

Jess

The rift sang in my ears loud enough to drown out the cries of the others. Especially him.

That errant thought caught me off-guard, but before I could pay much attention to it the rift shrieked in my head and another spur of white lightening snapped towards us. The rift was objecting to me being here. Tia dodged the strike, and I drew in more power from the rift.

What are you trying to do? You can't defeat me!

I'm giving you a chance. One chance to stop. Then that's it.

There was an impression of laughing. I won't need to accept that chance. You won't be able to do anything.

Then I'll have to stop you myself.

Not bad for a first chapter back? Let me know what you thought, and let me know if you forgive me for my horribleness. Next chapter will be up hopefully soon. Check out my original story over on Fictionpress while you wait.