Author's Note: Hi! Sorry for the long wait between updates. Very busy week. But, here it is. Turns out that there will indeed be four chapters, although the next chapter is going to be more of a resolution/epilogue sort of thing. Hopefully that will be up in the next few days. Thanks for all of the reviews, by the way - I lost track of who I had sent "Thank You"s to, so I figured I would include a general "Thank You" here for the ones that have been given so far. Hope you enjoy it.

Chapter Three

"That's well flash, innit?"

"We do not touch the Incendiary Helix Gun."

David looked at Ianto with a smirk. "Anything we do touch?"

"The insides of our pockets." Ianto steered David out of the armory. "It's a tour, not a Please Touch Museum."

David sighed, hands stuffed into his hoodie pouch, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. "So you catch aliens."

"That we do." Ianto motioned for David to follow him up the stairs and past the workstations.

"Can I see any?"

Ianto paused, thinking. "We haven't any in," he lied, deciding that perhaps Janet wasn't the best First Alien, no matter what Jack thought. "But," he said, holding a door open and letting David through, "we do have a bit of alien flora."

"Plants," David sighed, trailing his fingers over a shelf of clay pots spilling purple leaves. "No offense, mate, but in terms of sci-fi, alien roses are a bit-" There was a loud screech from the hub proper. David looked up, surprised. "What was that?"

"Myfanwy," Ianto said with an easy grin, leaning against the door.

"Who's Myfanwy?" David peered out through the greenhouse windows.

"Our pet pterodactyl. You were saying?"

David turned to stare at him. "Nevermind." He looked closer at the plants, stopping at one pot in particular, under a heat lamp. "What's this, then?" he asked, pointing at the lump of coral.

Ianto stepped closer, looking. He frowned. "Captain Harkness hasn't told me about that one."

David glanced at him, a small grin on his lips. "That sounds weird on you."

Ianto quirked a brow. "What?"

"Captain Harkness."

"How do you mean?"

"You're together, aren't you?"

Ianto's eyebrows shot up. "How do you figure?"

David smiled, looking closer at the plants. "I'm good at spotting those things. Not like a gaydar or anything – although your Captain set mine off from Penarth - just, knowing. The way you took his coat and hung it up and everything."

Ianto was silent, watching as David made his round of the room. God, even the way the kid looked screamed of Ianto's teenage years. Unkempt hair, clothes in tatters. The way he spoke, half "ain't", half books – he'd stopped earlier on the way through Jack's office to trail his eyes covetously over Jack's collection of old tomes.

Ianto said suddenly, "You live three doors away from where I grew up."

David looked at him. "You're related to the Martins?"

Ianto shook his head. "My parents died years ago. Do you know Rhiannon and Johnny Davies?"

David nodded. "Sure. Their kid Mica is mates with my little sister. Rhiannon your sister?"

Ianto smirked. "Johnny not seem like my brother?"

"Bit coarse for ya, yeah," David laughed.

"He's all right." Ianto shrugged and opened the door. "Want to meet Myfanwy?"

"She gonna eat me?"

"She's harmless." Ianto smirked as David went past him. "Just don't look her in the eye."

- - -

Jack found her in the interrogation room, her head down on the table. Her hair hid her face entirely, propped as it was by two clenched fists. Her back shook. He sat across from her and waited.

Without looking up she said, "I'm a terrible person."

Jack said nothing, drumming his fingers on the wooden table.

She looked up, her face red and black with irritation and eyeliner. "You're supposed to say, 'No, you're not.'"

He only looked at her.

She let out a strangled, frustrated sound, taking her hair in two fists and looking down at the table. "How can I think that Rhys is more worth saving than David? He's a child! How can my first reaction be to throw him to the wolves?" She paused, then looked up at him. "And how could you do that to me in front of him? Make me choose like that?"

"Do you really think it would have been better if you'd done the same thing where you couldn't see him?"

"No, that isn't what I-"

"It isn't a choice, Gwen."

Her brow furrowed. "How isn't it?"

He looked away from her. "It's the only thing that can happen. It doesn't matter that you chose Rhys over him, because his fate's already sealed. Even if you'd chosen him, you wouldn't be able to save him. He has to go through."

She leaned forward over the table. "It's still a choice. David still has to choose whether he'll do it or not. We won't just throw him into the rift."

Jack met her gaze and was silent.

Gwen's eyes widened and she threw herself away from the table. "Damnit, Jack!" she spat, staring at him. "How the hell can you make that decision?"

He spoke through bared teeth. "It isn't a decision. Do you want to die, Gwen? Do you want me and Ianto and David and your parents and everyone you've ever loved to die? Look at it rationally. Look at it without thinking about David as a child. If he doesn't do this, then everything you've ever cared about will be gone in three hours. I would rather his death be my fault than the end of the world be my fault."

She continued to stare, her mouth open in horror. "How – how can you sit there and talk like that and be totally unaffected? He's sixteen!"

Jack stood up, shouting so loud that the small room seemed to shake. "I am affected!" His hands were balled into fists, his nostrils flaring. "Do you think that I enjoy this? Being able to think like this? I wish that I could see it the way that you do, but I can't, because the world would have ended hundreds of times by now. These are the decisions that I have to make!" He stopped. He let out a breath, stepping back against the chain link wall in front of the stairs. "I've lived for such a long time. The things that I've done-" He cut off, looking away from her. "I had to do them. To save thousands. It's worth the sacrifice of a few to save thousands. We're sacrificing one to save six billion."

She drooped; she leaned against the wall behind her, staring at the floor. "He's so young," she said quietly.

Jack shook his head. "He might not die. He might end up somewhere safe. He might come back."

He saw the brief look pass over Gwen's face – fear and a kind of sickness – and wished that he hadn't said it. If he came back, it might be to Flat Holm island.

"He might be fine," he said finally.

She looked at him. "He might. But he probably won't."

Jack sighed. "He probably won't."

- - -

Ianto only turned his back for a minute, but it was long enough for David to have disappeared from the conference room. He toggled the hub CCTV feeds onto the hanging screen and searched for him.

Ah. There he was. Curled up on the dark steps of the medical bay. Ianto watched him for a moment, his fingers almost brushing the screen as he leaned close to see the details. David's back shaking. His head in his hands.

Ianto stepped back and closed his eyes, counting slowly in his head. Dread clamped his stomach in fierce knots. He knew what he was about to go and do. He didn't want it. This was exactly the kind of thing that Ianto never wanted.

He exhaled and walked for the medical bay. All the way his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. All the way his jaw tensed and released until it ached.

He sat down one stair above David. When David turned to look at him, the light from the workstation screens behind him lit his face in blue and shadows. "Thought I'd lost you," Ianto said quietly.

"Sorry," David sniffed. "Just-" He indicated himself with one hand – tear-streaked cheeks, runny nose which he wiped with his sleeve.

Ianto nodded. "It's all right."

David laughed with unsteady breath. "It's not. Nothing's all right."

Ianto just waited, looking at him.

David looked away, wiping his eyes. "What do you think I should do?" Ianto dropped his eyes. David noticed. "Sorry," he said. "That isn't fair, is it?"

Ianto shook his head. "It's fine. Do you honestly want my opinion?"

David looked straight at him. "Yeah."

"I think that you have to do it." Ianto held his eyes, even as they widened in fear. "If you don't, you'll die anyway. And so will everyone else."

David winced and looked away. After a moment he said, "You'd do it, wouldn't you?"

"Yes," Ianto said quietly. "I would."

"You wouldn't be afraid?"

"I'd be terrified." David looked at him, surprised. Ianto continued, "But to save my friends, the people I love, my family. I'd do it."

David sighed. He leaned back against the tile wall of the medical bay. "Do you know – what's going to happen to me?"

Ianto felt his heart sink inexplicably at the notes of decision in that question. "I don't know. You could go anywhere. Any time."

"So I could show up in Glasgow in a week?"

Ianto nodded. "Or Beijing in 1790."

David paused, then said in a husky breath, "Or the center of the sun."

Ianto's face creased into a grim frown. "Or there. Or some alien planet."

"I just – I wish I could know."

"I know. I'm sorry."

David was quiet for a few moments, looking down at the stairs below him.

Finally, he said, "Can you do something for me?"

Ianto looked at him. "What is it?"

"Can you – my little sister. Her name's Amanda. Ammy. Can you keep an eye on her for me? Just make sure she doesn't end up like my mum." He looked at Ianto, his eyes pleading. "I'm the only one who buys her books."

Ianto stared with burning eyes. Then he swallowed and nodded. "I'll watch out for her."

David looked relieved. "Thank you." A few tears escaped his eyes and he rubbed them away, then stood. "Do I look a mess?"

Ianto stood as well and shook his head. "You're fine."

They met eyes, standing in the dark with only the blue light illuminating their features. Ianto nodded, and gestured David up, then followed him out into the hub.

- - -

Jack and Gwen were sitting in Jack's office, not speaking. Gwen, Ianto observed, still looked as though she had swallowed something a little too large. Jack was expressionless. That said all he needed to know, really.

David stepped into the room, a little awkwardly, looking from Gwen to Jack. "I'm, um. I'm going to do it."

Gwen leapt out of her chair. "Oh, sweetheart-" She wrapped her arms around him. Over her shoulder, Jack could see his mildly uncomfortable, mildly amused, but altogether anxious face.

He pushed away from his desk and stood, coming forward. "I'm sorry," he said, "it's just that-"

"I know," David said, extricating himself out of Gwen's hold. "Ianto told me." He turned back to look at Ianto standing in the doorway.

Jack looked at him, too, with a hidden sort of searching expression. Ianto held his gaze. Yes, Ianto had convinced David to go through with it. Yes, Ianto knew this was the right thing. Yes, Ianto was going to feel unimaginably horrible when this was over. But for now, the boy. Jack looked away.

"The next rift spike is in about half an hour. It should be just enough time for the time lock to hold. Ianto, get the SUV. Gwen, take David out to the Plass. I'll be there in a minute."

Gwen nodded, guiding David out of the office and down toward the cog door with an unneeded arm around his shoulder. Ianto silently turned to go.

"Ianto." Jack stepped toward him.

He turned. "Don't." He met Jack's eyes again. "It's fine. Just – don't." And he left.

Jack looked after him, frowning.

- - -

The location for the rift activity was the middle of a field. They parked along the road and walked into the overgrown weeds and grass. The effect of the time lock was unbelievably eerie; it was seven in the evening, but it looked like mid-afternoon, the sun high in the sky, casting their shadows into the varying shades of green on the ground.

Beside him, Ianto felt David shaking. He put a hand on his shoulder. David looked at him gratefully, but Ianto caught the tightness of his smile, the shaking of his lips, and his stomach knotted further inside of him. Ianto felt like he would be ill.

Then, David was, and they had to stop while Ianto rubbed his back, until he straightened again and wiped his mouth with extreme distaste. "Sorry," he muttered. None of them could speak. Ianto's hand found its way back to David's shoulder. They moved on.

They were almost at the predicted location when the time lock broke.

They felt it; once again like the entire Earth had taken a step to the side, that seismic, internal pull. Then the sun seemed to stutter in the sky – then to move across it, slowly but visibly, turning their shadows into the ground like corkscrews.

Then the screams began.

Reapers appeared in flashes of gold fire above their heads, their scythe-like tails whipping angrily back and forth. Ianto stared up at them, mouth open. There were hundreds. Thousands. They filled the air above them and were visible in all directions.

"Ianto!"

Ianto turned, just in time to be thrust out of the way by a strong blue arm – he kept his grip on David, pulling the boy after him, Jack huddling the three of them – David, Ianto, Gwen – behind him as they stared up at the creatures.

Gwen shouted above the noise of the Reapers, the noise of Time righting itself, like rushing wind through a paper bag, "Jack! How long until the rift spike?"

"Three minutes!" he called back, not looking over his shoulder, instead keeping his eyes up. And the Reapers began to notice them.

One stopped still in the air above them, then screamed and dove.

They hurried out of its way, and it screamed again on the upswing, frustrated and angry. Jack's face hardened to a grimly determined expression, and Gwen grabbed his arm. "Jack, you can't!"

"I can distract them." He shook her off, looking back at them. "Get him through. It'll be fine if you get him through." Then he ran off into the middle of the field.

"Hey!" he shouted, staring up at the sky, which was slowly darkening, a little faster that twilight. "I'm more than two thousand years old! I'm one tasty son of a bitch! Come and get me!"

And they did. Ianto watched as hundreds of screaming, flying creatures dove for the ground and piled on top of Jack, fighting and clawing at each other to get at him. He felt David shifting to look, and heard his horrified intake of breath at the sight.

Beside them, Gwen whispered, "Oh, God. Jack."

She stepped away from them, toward where Jack looked like he was being ripped apart – and was immediately set upon by a Reaper.

"Gwen!" Ianto shouted. But she was gone in an instant, and the Reaper took off back into the air.

Ianto grabbed David's arm and pulled the boy behind him. He was the next oldest. He'd protect him until the last possible second.

The world filled with light. It half blinded them; they stumbled away, holding their hands over their eyes.

After a second, they could see it. A tear hanging open in the air, bright white and emitting an odd warmth in the cold of the field. Ianto's grip on David tightened at the sight of it.

David looked at him. "That's it, isn't it?"

All Ianto could do was nod.

David looked back at it for a moment. Then he put his free hand on the one Ianto was using to hold onto him. "It's all right," he said.

Ianto looked at him, uncomprehending. Then it occurred to him, and he felt his grip tighten.

"Your Captain," David said quietly, "remember? The whole world."

Ianto stared into his face and then, slowly, painfully, he let go of David's arm. David smiled a very tense, very nervous smile.

"Thanks."

Then he ran. He jumped into the gash of light.

Everything went dark.